
Counting
humans, history and the infinite lives of numbers
$24.90
- Paperback
384 pages
- Release Date
27 October 2025
Summary
The Order of Numbers: A Journey Through Humanity’s Fascination with Counting
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO COUNT? WHY ARE HUMANS THE ONLY SPECIES ON EARTH THAT CAN DO IT? WHERE DID COUNTING COME FROM? HOW HAS IT SHAPED SOCIETIES ALONG THE WAY? AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?
Counting is an innovative, erudite, world-wrapping journey through humanity’s marvelous ability to impose numbers on things. Acclaimed historian and mathematician Benjamin Wardhaugh draws on sto…
Book Details
ISBN-13: | 9780008436506 |
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ISBN-10: | 0008436509 |
Author: | Benjamin Wardhaugh |
Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
Imprint: | William Collins |
Format: | Paperback |
Number of Pages: | 384 |
Release Date: | 27 October 2025 |
Weight: | 270g |
Dimensions: | 198mm x 129mm x 24mm |
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What They're Saying
Critics Review
Praise for The Book of Wonders:
‘An astonishingly readable and informative history of the greatest mathematical bestseller of all time, from ancient Greece to dark energy. The writing is vivid and the stories are gripping. Highly recommended!’
Ian Stewart, author of Significant Figures
‘Benjamin Wardhaugh is an excellent storyteller and his collected short story approach to the history of The Elements works splendidly… simultaneously educational, entertaining and illuminating … A highly desirable read for all those, both professional and amateur, who interest themselves in the histories of mathematics, science and knowledge … over almost two and a half millennia’
Thony Christie, The Renaissance Mathematicus
Praise for Gunpowder and Geometry:
‘Meticulous yet lively biography, even those who have never heard of its subject could hardly disagree’
Sunday Times
‘As this book argues persuasively, he changed a whole culture: by simple dint of his genial celebrity as well as a europhile passion for developments in France and elsewhere, he helped to elevate mathematics to a rank equal with the other sciences. It is impossible not to warm to such a man in Wardhaugh’s wryly sympathetic telling … Spirited and elegantly erudite’
Daily Telegraph
About The Author
Benjamin Wardhaugh
Benjamin Wardhaugh is a Fifty-pound Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. His research focuses on the history of numeracy and mathematics, and the ways mathematics influences and is a part of cultures. His work focuses mainly on topics in early modern Britain, including mathematical music theory in that period. He has taught in both the Mathematical Institute and the History Faculty. He is the author of several previous educational books.
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