scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1467310
The author intends to present not only a new book on the history of mathematics but also a new method: he is concentrating on the lives and contributions of extraordinary mathematicians. This method should be able to illuminate in a much better way the power, beauty, and variety of mathematics and to explore the mediation of mathematical developments by their cultural, intellectual and social contexts. This really interesting new method, the contextual history, is indeed something in between the internal and the external view of history. The following four main epochs are regarded: I: Before the Advent of Civilization. II: Antiquity. From Protomathematics to Theoretical Mathematics. (Including Mesopotamia and Egypt as well as China and India, but concentrating on Greece). III: The Islamic World, Latin West and Maya America from the Middle Ages to ca. 1500. IV: Transition to Modern Mathematics in Europe. The book ends with the year 1727, that is when Newton died and that is before the contributions of Euler. The volume is accompanied by 676 endnotes, a detailed bibliography (p. 692-721) and a name and subject index.
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