Tony:

In the comments on my recent post on books on the history of maths Fernando Q. Gouvêa jumped in to draw attention to the book Math Through the Ages: A Gentle History for Teachers and Others, which he coauthored with William P. Berlinghoff. I had not come across this book before, as I noted in my post I gave up reading general histories of maths long ago, so, I went looking and came across the following glowing recommendation:

“Math Through the Ages is a treasure, one of the best history of math books at its level ever written. Somehow, it manages to stay true to a surprisingly sophisticated story, while respecting the needs of its audience. Its overview of the subject captures most of what one needs to know, and the 30 sketches are small gems of exposition that stimulate further exploration.” — Glen Van Brummelen, Quest University 

Glen Van Brummelen is an excellent historian of maths and regular readers will already know that I’m a very big fan of his books on the history of trigonometry, which I reviewed here. Intrigued I decided to acquire a copy and see if it lives up to Glen’s description. The book that I acquired is the paperback Dover reprint from 2019 of the second edition from Oxton House Publishers, Farmington, Maine, it has a recommended price in the USA of $18, which is certainly affordable for its intended audience, school, college and university students. The cover blurb says, “Designed for students just beginning their study of the discipline…”