Writing the History of Mathematics Its Historical Development [Paperback]

As an historiographic monograph, this book offers a detailed survey of the professional evolution and significance of an entire discipline devoted to the history of science. It provides both an intellectual and a social history of the development of the subject from the first such effort written by the ancient Greek author Eudemus in the Fourth Century BC, to the founding of the international journal, Historia Mathematica, by Kenneth O. May in the early 1970s.

Writing the History of Mathematics provides both an intellectual and a social history of the development of the subject from the first such effort written in ancient Greece to recent efforts in the 20th century. A special project of the International Commission on History of Mathematics, this work is the result of more than ten years of collaboration by a team of 32 experts, each writing about the history of mathematics in their own countries or regions, and drawing upon extensive research and archival study. In addition to individuals, such institutions as universities, academies, institutes, libraries, and the like are also covered, including journals, encyclopedias, and other collective projects that promote history of mathematics. The book also includes portraits of twenty-five historians of mathematics.

I Countries.- 1 France.- 1.1 Introduction.- 1.2 Changing Appreciation of the Ancients, from the Renaissance to the Seventeenth Century.- 1.3 History of the Progress of the Human Mind (in the Enlightenment).- 1.3.1 Fontenelle, the Initiator of a Tradition.- 1.3.2 The Historical Dimension of the Encyclopedia Project.- 1.3.3 Montuclas Monumental Work.- 1.4 Historiography in Revolutionary Times.- 1.5 The Reform of Society Through the Sciences: Positivism.- 1.6 Oriental Studies and the History of Mathematics in the Nineteenth Century.- 1.6.1 Collaboration Between Scientists and Orientalists.- 1.6.2 Academic Controversies on the History of Arabic Mathematlg