I got this for a Christmas present – retired math teacher and all – and it turned out to be quite enlightening. These types of books tend to run more along the “Hey did you know that a lot of important math discoveries were made by – wait for it – women and non-European white males? That includes the lady with the best nickname ever, the Witch of Agnesi, based on a botched translation. My theory is that these ladies came up with these amazing discoveries because they were basically self-taught, and no one was around to mansplain the Right Way to Do These Things.
But what this book really brought out is that mathematics as we know it today was a nearly world-wide revolution in thinking. Which of course is why math is still a universal language. Take base for example, or how many symbols do you use to write a number. Some civilizations used over 20 symbols, and some had none at all. But eventually the world as a whole eventually boiled it down to the two systems we use today. Base 10 from the Arab world, especially once zero was added, was a no brainer. Ten fingers, after all, and with decimal arithmetic, so easy to use. (Roman numerals, you should be ashamed of yourselves.) And base 12 – because it can be divided evenly in so many ways. Once everyone settled on a circle being 360º, you got geometry, navigation at sea, astronomy, 12 month calendars, and time measurement, all of which don’t work as nicely with a decimal system.
But the most important takeaway was this. The traditional story [of math]. . . often with too heavy a focus on a small cast of ancient Greek characters, is just one component of a far richer and far more international history. This book did an excellent job of bringing that wider scope out. Kudos!