Based on period documents and photography, the book maps in detail the development of Czech non-university sciences from the 18th century when the Society of Unknown Scholars in the Austrian Lands was founded in Olomouc. The main attention is focused on the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and its most important precursors, whether the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, active in 1953 – 1992, or earlier institutions, such as the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts (originally the Emperor Franz Joseph Czech Academy for Sciences, Literature and Arts), founded in 1890, or the Royal Bohemian Society of Learning, which existed already from the 18th century.

Individual chapters are devoted also to Masaryk Academy of Labour and the main scientific institutions of the Germans living in the Czech lands – Gesellschaft zur Förderung Deutscher Wissenschaft, Kunst und Literatur in Böhmen (Society for the Support of German Sciences, Arts and Literature in Bohemia). Attention is, however, also devoted to our most important scientists with whose research results as well as the milieu in which they worked and work the reader is acquainted with through archival and contemporary sources. The patrons and sponsors who made it possible for Czech science to reach a global level are also not forgotten. The entire process of the development of Czech non-university science is places in the wider social context, which influenced the development of the scientific institutions and the position of scientists in them.