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An Introduction to the History of Mathematics (Saunders Series)

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The careful documentation of the discoveries and history of mathematics is of overwhelming importance, especially in modern times where the advances are taking place so rapidly that the historical roots of some branches of mathematics seem to be getting lost. It would be a tragedy if the history of these important developments were not put into print so that later generations of mathematicians and students could have an understanding of how these came about. Thanks to the information age, the accessibility of mathematical documents has dramatically increased, but these documents usually do not include overviews of how the ideas took root and then flourished as independent research disciplines.

This book gives a general overview of mathematical developments up until the middle of the twentieth century. It is a fascinating story, and readers will realize to what extent mathematical ideas deemed complex by even modern standards were known by the ancients. Indeed, it is very surprising to learn that in 2000 BC the Babylonians were solving quadratic equations and even some cubic and quartic equations. The Babylonians did not produce an Evariste Galois, that took centuries more time, but they were dealing with mathematical constructions that were interesting to compare with modern methods.

One very interesting feature of this book is that it is meant to be used as a textbook, and not just in a course in the history of mathematics. The author has included "problem studies" and "essay topics" at the end of each chapter that challenge the reader to solve problems pertinent to the historical topics of each chapter. The inclusion of these problems will allow the student to gain insight on the difficulty in solving problems with the constraint of using concepts that were unique to a definite period in mathematical history.

The book also includes discussions of the history of non-Western contributions to mathematics. The work of the Hindus, the Chinese, and Arabs is included. The contributions of the Arabs are particularly important for later developments in the West, as it was they who revived Greek philosophy and mathematics and consequently changed dramatically the role of mathematics in Europe.

The reading of this book will give a greater appreciation of the developments in mathematics as they are done today. Mathematical research now is done by both human and machine, and no doubt this century, and others beyond it, will result in brilliant developments. Mathematics pervades every human activity in the modern world and every piece of technology. When books like this one are written in the future, readers who peruse them and take note of the incredible advancements made in mathematics in the centuries that preceed them, no doubt their predominant emotion will be astonishment.

I agree with the person who said this book is very informative & it is also easy to read. I learned lots from doing the problems too, like for example, a simple algorithm on how to construct magic squares of odd size. This book was good for the course I did because there's only so much you can do in a course; Morris Kline's "Mathematical Thought From Ancient to Modern Times" is twice as long as this one so it goes into much more detail, but too much for a 1-term course. This book by Eves is a good INTRO to the history of math, I liked it.

This was the textbook for a History of Math class I took at U of Iowa. The readings in each chapter are very interesting. As the other reviewers said, if you are interested in math, you will enjoy reading the text.

The problem is that the attached essays and problems for each chapter are not possible to be solved/completed just given the information in the chapter. The readings are generally qualitative descriptions of the historical development and then the problems ask you to (for example) find the tangent to the curve the way it would have been done by this ancient mathematician and then by this other ancient mathematician, etc. I spent hours every week searching online for enough information to complete the homework.

Good luck!

Thanks a bunch. The book came in promptly as promised and in wonderful condition; no tears, tarnishes, or anything of the sort.

The historical development of math provided in the book is worthwhile. Short historical passages begin each chapter. It's appropriate for 2nd year or 3rd year math college students after they have taken college algebra and college geometry in order to work on many of the problems in the book. The great thing is you can find many of the solutions to the problems online from other websites b/c many colleges work on the problems presented in this book.

However, some of the author's solutions or explanations provided in the book were a little bit beyond me. I was always missing 1 or 2 pieces of information to see how the author carried out his reasoning and it took me a long time or still left unknown how he reached at a few of the solutions. The book is like a collection of puzzles from history. Some of the problems will be interesting or unappealing.
The book recommends for it to be studied as a year long course of study and I can see why. It's really important to have studied the college level math courses in order to work through the problems. An Introduction to the History of Mathematics (Saunders Series)

Seller was prompt with shipping and the item came in the stated condition. I would definitely recommend this seller.

This book is quite informative and interesting to read. If you love any math at all, you should definitally read it.

When used as a self-study text, I found the book to be lacking a sufficient quantity of example problems solved in adequate detail to be truly helpful.