The sona tradition belongs to the culture of the Cokwe and related peoples in Eastern Angola and neighboring areas of Northwest Zambia and the Congo. Observers have described sona as sand graphs, sand drawings, drawings in the sand, writing in the sand, pictographs and ideograms, and as a system of communication. This volume by Paulus Gerdes, an ethnomathematician, shows that mathematical considerations were involved and developed as the Cokwe invented sona and built up a reservoir of symbolic-graphic expressions.

Mesopotamian mathematics is known from a great number of highly studied cuneiform texts, including Old, Pre-Old, and Late Babylonian texts. In contrast, Egyptian mathematics is known from only a small number of papyrus texts. In this book, it is shown that comparisons of a large number of individual Egyptian mathematical exercises with Babylonian parallels yield many new insights into the nature of Egyptian mathematics and show that Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics display greater similarities than expected.

Indian Mathematics gives a unique insight into the history of mathematics within a historical global context. It builds on research into the connection between mathematics and the world-wide advancement of economics and technology. Joseph draws out parallel developments in other cultures and carefully examines the transmission of mathematical ideas across geographical and cultural borders.

Volume 3 of 3, The Elements is a mathematical treatise attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid in Alexandria, Egypt, c. 300 BC. It is a collection of definitions, postulates, propositions and mathematical proofs of the propositions.

This book presents an account of selected topics from key mathematical works of medieval Islam, in reference to specific Arabic texts. Among the topics discussed are decimal arithmetic, plane and spherical trigonometry, algebra, interpolation and approximation of roots of equations.

This volume documents how and why the calculus developed in India, over a one thousand year period, was transmitted to Europe in the 16th c., without acknowledgment. To better understand this process, this volume emphasizes the non-universality of present-day formal mathematics, its theological origins, and highlighting alternative beliefs about logic, proof, and number. Commissioned by the Centre for Studies in Civilizations of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, this book examines the implications of Indian history and philosophy for contemporary mathematics and science.

A History of Mathematics covers the evolution of mathematics through time and across the major Eastern and Western civilizations. Beginning in Babylon, the book then describes the trials and tribulations of the Greek mathematicians, while also highlighting the often-neglected influence of both Chinese and Islamic mathematics. The book concludes with modern mathematics and includes an extensive bibliography with cross-references to key texts on the global history of mathematics.