Episodes in the Mathematics of Medieval Islam

See our review of the first edition. This second edition comes some thirty years after the first, so that its first goal is to incorporate much of the recent research on the subject. This is visible, for example, in updated bibliographies at the end of each chapter. Another major sign is the disappearance from the book of the “House of Wisdom”, reflecting the new scholarly consensus that it was much less significant than originally thought.

There is also a new seventh chapter, on number theory and combinatorics, which have received much attention in recent years. One major difference between this chapter and the ones in the first edition is that the new chapter does not include exercises.

An additional goal, as Berggren explains in the preface, is to include more adequate coverage of mathematics in Islamic North Africa and Spain. The most obvious sign of this is right up front: as in the first edition, we see a “map showing major cities in text” whose westernmost city is Cairo; in this edition, however, it is immediately followed by two other maps showing Western North Africa and Spain.

Another obvious (and welcome) change is that many of the images in the first chapter are now printed in color. This is particularly good for those that are photographs of places important to the story. Otherwise, the revision seems to be light. One curious change is that the section on Arabic names has disappeared, but the section title still includes the topic.

As Glen van Brummelen said in his review, Berggren is successful in making a selection of the mathematics of Medieval Islam accessible to non-specialists. Together with the selection of original texts to be found in the two sourcebooks edited by Victor Katz, it provides a fantastic place of entry for those who want to learn about this period.

Fernando Q. Gouvêa is Carter Professor of Mathematics at Colby College.