Routes of Learning

Ivor Grattan-Guinness has been a leader in the field for decades. His ideas are at times contentious, which is all the more reason to have them all together in one volume. There is nothing else available like this, because there is no other researcher like Grattan-Guinness. This volume is a must for math historians, math philosophers, and all collegiate libraries. -- Amy Shell-Gellasch, editor of From Calculus to Computers: Using the Last 200 Years of Mathematics History in the Classroom

All historians of mathematics and students of the field will want a copy of this remarkable resource on their bookshelves.This seminal collection gathers together many general writings of one of the world's leading historians of mathematics. Organized thematically, these essays ponder the intellectual underpinnings of the field, examine the major topics in the history of mathematics, and recount the bizarre history of pseudomath. Ivor Grattan-Guinness explores how people understand mathematics-the routes of learning they take as they make important discoveries and study mathematical concepts and theories. The essays in the first part of the book discuss the history of mathematics as a field and its central philosophical issues. Those in the next part address the history of mathematics education and its importance to current modes of teaching. In the last section Grattan-Guinness investigates various understudied aspects of math, including numerology, Masonic symbols in classical music, and the links between mathematics and Christianity. This collection includes several essays that are difficult to find anywhere else. All historians of mathematics and students of the field will want a copy of this remarkable resource on their bookshelves.