Reviews for History of Mathematics An Introduction

The average rating for History of Mathematics An Introduction based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-05-17 00:00:00 Erica Futral Not, I suppose, a good fit for everyone, but if the reader has any curiosity at all regarding the subject, this is an excellent look at the development of Mathematical thought from ancient times through the present. The only flaw I can find worth quibbling about is that at times, especially as the subjects being addressed approached the modern era, a certain level of familiarity with the material being discussed was assumed on the part of the reader, such that it was more than passing difficult to follow the discussion if one wasn't at least passably fluent with set theory, as just one example. Some of the terminology used in these cases without explanation was more than a touch impenetrable, and considering that the topics being discussed were topics that are rarely discussed until at least upper-level undergraduate courses and frequently beyond, it is not unreasonable to expect enough explanation to enable someone without much previous exposure to the concepts to at least understand what is being discussed; because there was not even that much explanation, I would not recommend the last couple of chapters to anyone without at least some graduate level math courses under their belt. Most of the book, though, did not suffer from this problem and was quite readable.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-06-20 00:00:00 Camille Carrasco Working my way through thus lovely tome for the fourth or fifth time. I love this book---working math in the style of those who developed the methods us awesome!!!