History of Mathematics

Originally published in 1893, this book was significantly revised and extended by the author (second edition, 1919) to cover the history of mathematics from antiquity to the end of World War I. Since then, three more editions were published, and the current volume is a reproduction of the fifth edition (1991). The book covers the history of ancient mathematics (Babylonian, Egyptian, Roman, Chinese, Japanese, Mayan, Hindu, and Arabic, with a major emphasis on ancient Greek mathematics). The chapters that follow explore European mathematics in the Middle Ages and the mathematics of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries (Vieta, Decartes, Newton, Euler, and Lagrange). The last and longest chapter discusses major mathematics events of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Topics discussed in this chapter include synthetic and analytic geometry, algebra, analysis, the theory of functions, the theory of numbers, and others. In one concise volume, the author presents an interesting and reliable account of mathematics history. Cajori has mastered the art of incorporating an enormous amount of material into a smoothly flowing narrative. The review of the volume's third edition in Mathematical Reviews ends with the following words: 'Chaque mathematicien devrait lire ce livre!'