Boyer's landmark study about how mathematical ideas are transmitted from one practitioner to another is here reprinted from the Yeshiva University Press edition of 1956. Writing for undergraduate students and general readers interested in mathematics, Boyer starts with the first scribbles on papyrus and moves from contributor to contributor through about 1850. He describes the fascination of the Greeks with geometry, the roughly 650-year interval between Boethius and Fibonacci, the shift toward algebra in the early modern period, to the accomplishments of Fermat and Descartes. He delivers a very lively chapter on the work in the period from Newton to Euler, followed by another about the age of the French mathematicians. He acknowledges the work of the formidable but largely unsung Plcker, who contributed more to analytical geometry than even Newton by going beyond geometry into uncharted spaces of the mind. Boyer includes a comprehensive bibliography. Annotation 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
