This book is the 3rd volume in a 5 volume series by Bradley. The book is set up in chapters dedicated to 10 different people from the time period of the title and their contributions to mathematics. Throughout school, in most of my math classes, we barely touched on the history of math. Anything from how concepts were developed and who originated these concepts was hardly ever discussed. I feel a book like this and the entire series becomes so important in teaching math. Sometimes a simple relation to the origins can help a student better understand a concept that may otherwise seem very foreign.
I would love to add the entire series of the Pioneers in Mathematics to my classroom collection. It is a great reference for students in learning a little more about the history in math. And since the history of math is not part of a typical math curriculum, I think it’s important for teachers to take the initiative to introduce students to it. I would use this book and the others for students to peruse and find either a person or concept listed and create a project on this.
What I love about what the author did in the book is add a further reading section to the end of each chapter. This gives any student looking through a book a list of other material they can use to do more research. The list is specific to the person discussed in the chapter, so there is no guessing left as to what material relates to what sections of the book.
Even as a math teacher now, I know very little about some of the history of math, so this is definitely a book and series I want to take the time to read through so I can, in turn, teach a history lesson to my students. ( )

This book is 2nd in a series of books entitled "Pioneers in Mathematics". It covers the 19th century developments in math by 10 mathematicians. It covers their life, interests and contributions. It also details why their contributions were important. Each of the mathematicians chosen have a unique story. The biographies are interesting and full of information.

While there are few pictures, some of the work is illustrated. There is a table of contents, a preface telling about the purpose of the book series, acknowledgements and an introduction to the mathematicians in this book. The layout is logical with each chapter covering one mathematicians and being sequences chronologically starting with their death and ending with their death and contributions that went beyond their death. Each chapter is followed with a list of books and articles for further reading. The book ends with a list of book and internet resources, a glossary and an index.

Overall, this book is well written. It is not as engaging as it could be but not nearly tedious. The biographies are short and to the point with as much information as one could possibly squeeze into a short book. All major events and contributions are touched on. Interesting facts about each person's life is also included such as Mary Fairfax Somerville's marriages and birth of 5 children, their education, and her still being able to conduct physics experiments.

This would be a great resource in a math classroom, especially with the new common core requirements coming down. Math teachers must now have a literacy connection and historical information on the math topics. This would be great to pull and use to hook students into a lesson. Math is seen as just facts, numbers, theorems and proofs but to see that they were developed by real people from all over the world and all walks of life will make it more interesting. ( )