This book basically contains the entire history of transplantation surgery to 2012 including not just the milestones but the internal thinking behind different approaches to transplant surgery from different institutions and researchers, which explains why different organs were transplanted first and why certain attempts met dead ends. The many failures that littered the road to success offers a interesting counterpoint to the standard whig gradually and constantly progressing view that makes up a lot of the traditional view in scientific and medical advances. Would definitely recommend to anyone interested in transplant surgery.

Edit 5/4/26: I guess another takeaway is the power of the human mind to fool itself and become fooled, there's entire chapters dedicated to early 1920s events like testicle transplantations from monkeys to reverse impotence or skin grafts between different people of skin colors where even though the graft died the melanin was still present so the skin graft was assumed to survive and stuff like that without any formal measurable studies. Reading the advances made earlier in the century makes you realize that these scientists weren't stupid, they were just optimistic and rose lensed to see results that didn't exist. It's another humbling reminder that objective metrics agreeable with counterparties to hold oneself accountable are really the only ways to stop oneself from falling into pits of their own making.