The origin of representation theory (Q1594933)

The author tells the story which has started in 1846 with an introduction of circulants by Catalan. After some results by Cremona and others, Dedekind extended circulants to group determinants in algebraic number theory and around 1886 became interested in factoring the group determinants for nonabelian finite groups. In 1896 Dedekind classified all finite groups which possess normal subgroups only and in a letter to Frobenius he suggested to think about the nonabelian case. Frobenius took up the problem and that was the beginning of his representation theory. Although historical in character, the paper is a fine piece of mathematics. It provides results in their logical sequel and supplies them with the proofs, either historical or modern.