Numbers: A Cultural History

Numbers: A Cultural History provides students with a compelling interdisciplinary view of the development of mathematics and its relationship to world cultures over 4,500 years of human history.

Mathematics is often referred to as a "universal language," and that is a fitting description. Many cultures have contributed to mathematics in fascinating ways, but despite its "universal" character, mathematics is also a human endeavor. It has played pivotal roles in societies at particular times; and it has influenced, and been influenced by, a wide range of ideas and institutions, from commerce to philosophy. Ancient Egyptian views of mathematics, for example, are tied closely to engineering and agriculture. Some European Renaissance views, on the other hand, relate the study of number to that of the natural world.

Numbers, A Cultural History seeks to place the history of mathematics into a broad cultural context. While it treats mathematical material in detail, it also relates that material to other subject matter: science, philosophy, navigation, commerce, religion, art, and architecture. It examines how mathematical thinking grows in specific cultural settings and how it has shaped those settings in turn. It also explores the movement of ideas between cultures and the evolution of modern mathematics and the quantitative, data-driven world in which we live.

ISBN-13: 9781440869334

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Publication Date: 08-04-2022

Pages: 368

Product Dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.81(d)

Age Range: 12 - 18 Years

Robert Kiely, PhD, teaches the history of ideas in the Liberal Arts Department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Introduction ix

Chapter 1 Numbers in Ancient Mesopotamia 1

Chapter 2 Numbers in Ancient Egypt 25

Chapter 3 Numbers in Ancient Greece 47

Chapter 4 Numbers in the Hellenistic Mediterranean 75

Chapter 5 Numbers in Traditional China 101

Chapter 6 Numbers and the Classical Maya 127

Chapter 7 Numbers in Ancient and Medieval India 145

Chapter 8 Numbers in the Medieval Arabic World 167

Chapter 9 Numbers in Medieval Europe 193

Chapter 10 Numbers in Early Modern Europe 221

Chapter 11 Numbers in 18th- and 19th-Century Europe 253

Chapter 12 Women and Numbers 285

Chapter 13 Numbers in the 20th Century 307

Appendix: A Brief Look at Navigation 325

Bibliography 329

Index 335

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