Mathematics Across Cultures: A History of Non-Western Mathematics consists of essays dealing with the mathematical knowledge and beliefs of cultures outside the United States and Europe. In addition to articles surveying Islamic, Chinese, Native American, Aboriginal Australian, Inca, Egyptian, and African mathematics, among others, the book includes essays on Rationality, Logic and Mathematics, and the transfer of knowledge from East to West. The essays address the connections between science and culture and relate the mathematical practices to the cultures which produced them. Each essay is well illustrated and contains an extensive bibliography. Because the geographic range is global, the book fills a gap in both the history of science and in cultural studies. It should find a place on the bookshelves of advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars, as well as in libraries serving those groups.

This book provides a fascinating and inspirational read for anyone with an interest in advanced mathematics, written by the great German mathematician Felix Klein. It is highly recommended for inclusion on the bookshelf of anyone with an interest in the subject.

SCIENCE AND EMPIRES: FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM TO THE BOOK Patrick PETITJEAN, Catherine JAMI and Anne Marie MOULIN The International Colloquium "Science and Empires - Historical Studies about Scientific De velopment and European Expansion" is the product of an International Colloquium, "Sciences and Empires - A Comparative History of Scien tific Exchanges: European Expansion and Scientific Development in Asian, African, American and Oceanian Countries". Organized by the REHSEIS group (Research on Epistemology and History of Exact Sciences and Scientific Institutions) of CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), the colloquium was held from 3 to 6 April 1990 in the UNESCO building in Paris. This colloquium was an idea of Professor Roshdi Rashed who initiated this field of studies in France some years ago, and proposed "Sciences and Empires" as one of the main research programmes for the The project to organize such a colloquium was a bit REHSEIS group. of a gamble. Its subject, reflected in the title "Sciences and Empires", is not a currently-accepted sub-discipline of the history of science; rather, it refers to a set of questions which found autonomy only recently. The terminology was strongly debated by the participants and, as is frequently suggested in this book, awaits fuller clarification.

Thisbookgrewoutof anongoing e?orttomodernizeColgate University’s three-term,introductory,calculus-level physicscourse. Thebookisforthe ?rst term of this course and is intended to help ?rst-year college students make a good transition from high-school physics to university physics. Thebookconcentrates onthephysicsthatexplainswhywebelievethat atoms exist and have the properties we ascribe to them. This story line, which motivates much of our professional research, has helped us limit the material presented to a more humane and more realistic amount than is presented in many beginning university physics courses. The theme of atoms also supports the presentation of more non-Newtonian topics and ideas than is customary in the ?rst term of calculus-level physics. We think it is important and desirable to introduce students sooner than usual to some of the major ideas that shape contemporary physicists’ views of the nature and behavior of matter. Here in the second decade of the twenty-?rst century such a goal seems particularly appropriate. The quantum nature of atoms and light and the mysteries associated with quantum behavior clearly interest our students. By adding and - phasizing more modern content, we seek not only to present some of the physics that engages contemporary physicists but also to attract students to take more physics. Only a few of our beginning physics students come to us sharply focused on physics or astronomy. Nearly all of them, h- ever, have taken physics in high school and found it interesting.