Lancelot Hogben (1895–1975)

A masterful description of the field of Mathematics in the early 20th century. Hogben shows not just the how, but also the why, of mathematics, and sets it in the context of the historical questions it has aimed to answer. Sometimes his workings are slightly more difficult to follow than might be the case, and, irritatingly, he sets a number of exercises for the reader to complete, but does not give the answers to all the exercises at the back of the book!

Good education, when math in high school was no more than problem sets without background or context.

This is too awesome not to own. I guess this is the text that set Sun Ra on his whole freaky language trip? Anyways it's not the kind of book I can't read cover to cover but even a partial reading gives you a much better and more holistic sense of how language works.

With 20 pages in full colour and 211 illustrations in black and white, selected by Marie Neurath, Director of the Isotyhpe Institute.