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Republic of numbers. Unexpected stories of mathematical Americans through history. (English) Zbl 1435.01005

Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press (ISBN 978-1-4214-3308-0/hbk). viii, 244 p. (2019).
This book recounts the development of mathematics in the United States over the course of the last two hundred years. The author does not attempt a comprehensive survey, nor does he focus exclusively on the internal development of mathematics. Instead, through a series of vignettes, the author paints a picture of mathematics in the community from a variety of perspectives.
In twenty chapters, the author gives brief biographies of twenty-three individual Americans who contributed to the increased importance of mathematics to society. The chapters are spaced at 10-year intervals, with each date providing a hook for the biographical narrative of the chapter. While some of the chapters feature well-known names noted for their individual contributions, such as Nathaniel Bowditch, J. Willard Gibbs, Grace Hopper, and John Nash, others are selected for reflecting social trends and institutional development. Thus, we meet Sylvanus Thayer, superintendent of the West Point Military Academy from 1817 to 1833. The importance of mathematics to the military meant that for a long time, West Point was the pre-eminent institution in America for mathematics education and a notable number of its alumni show up in later chapters.
As educational opportunities expanded in the US, so did the market for textbooks, illustrated by a chapter on Catherine Beecher and Joseph Ray; later on the growing institutionalization of education is reflected in a chapter on Charles M. Austin, the first president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Educational opportunities expanded, but not equally with respect to race, class and gender, as the author is careful to make clear in the chapters on Christine Ladd-Franklin, who wrote her dissertation at Johns Hopkins in 1882, but whose degree was only awarded in 1926; Kelly Miler, the first black man to attend Johns Hopkins, and Edgar L. Edwards, Jr., a pioneer in the racial integration of education in Virginia.
The twenty chapters total just over 200 pages (followed by bibliography and index), so each biography is necessarily brief. Intended for a general audience, the book delivers on the author’s goal to “breeze across more than 200 years of US history.”

MSC:

01-02 Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to history and biography
01A70 Biographies, obituaries, personalia, bibliographies
01A80 Sociology (and profession) of mathematics
01A55 History of mathematics in the 19th century
01A60 History of mathematics in the 20th century
97-03 History of mathematics education
97A40 Mathematics education and society
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