This is just awesome! This is exactly what's missing from textbooks. Oh yeah, you get little blurbs about Descartes and Pascal but this is the whole story. This is what makes mathematics interesting. We enforce the study of the corpus without any recognition that our mathematics is an epic human achievement.

It gets pretty advanced. What we teach in high school was really understood by the 18th century so maybe half the book is kinda wasted. It really helped me when students would ask me "why" we had to study this stuff if I could wax poetic about who and how it was figured out.

A good read if your mathematically inclined. Indespensible if you teach the stuff. ( )

Lengthwise, 800 pages. Subjectwise, covers (the history of) most of the main branches of math. Difficultywise, not hard reading but technical clarity could be better. Placewise, more than 80% Europe. Timewise, more than 50% 1800s, with nothing after "the Great War."