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Mathematics in Ancient Iraq: A Social History

by Eleanor Robson

This book traces the origins and development of mathematics in the ancient Middle East, from its earliest beginnings in the fourth millennium BCE to the end of indigenous intellectual culture in the second century BCE when cuneiform writing was gradually abandoned. Eleanor Robson offers a history like no other, examining ancient mathematics within its broader social, political, economic, and religious contexts, and showing that mathematics was not just an abstract discipline for elites but a key component in ordering society and understanding the world. "... an enormously significant contribution to the history of mathematics. No other work surveys the vast landscape of Mesopotamian mathematics from a position of the modern understanding of the past, incorporating the latest scholarship and yet still managing to be so accessible to nonspecialists. Robson's book is an outstanding guide that can be consulted by anyone interested in the field." - Duncan J. Melville, St. Lawrence University "A truly exciting and highly readable intellectual history of ancient Iraq ... destined to become a classic ... truly a magnificent read." - Gary Urton, Harvard University 441p. (Princeton University Press 2008)

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