Reddit mentions of The Rickenbacker Electric Bass: 50 Years as Rock's Bottom

I have a few coffee table type books like this. For fender stuff the fender bass illustrated history is a good one. Goes through all the design changes and such up until the early 2000s.

This book has several different editions, I have the one with an Alembic on the cover, I think this is a newer update, but it’s a more general history of bass designs.

For rickenbacker specifically this one is good.

I don’t know about a book but for Gibson the flyguitars website is a great resource.

Not basses specifically, but Greg Hopkins ampeg history book is another good one. Only goes up to the mid/late-90s SLM era though.