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Rating: 
Summary: math
Review: i also bought the book based on the quote from einstein on the back. not an easy read at all but one if you are already a math person that should be read
Rating: 
Summary: This book is terrible
Review: I purchased this book based on the Einstein quote on the back cover, and clearly the man has his limitations. This book is powerfully uninteresting. The author is pedantic and uninspiring. The great ideas of mathematics are in there of course, but it is hard to imagine them being more poorly presented. I highly recommend reading Bell's Men of Mathematics if you want to gain some insight into the great ideas of mathematics written by someone of a broad mind and sound judgement who happens to know how to write. Of course, if you want to be a better mathematician, bust out your Calc book and do some problems. This book tries to be both narrative and teacher's aide and ends up being neither.
Rating:
Summary: This book is terrible
Review: I purchased this book based on the Einstein quote on the back cover, and clearly the man has his limitations. This book is powerfully uninteresting. The author is pedantic and uninspiring. The great ideas of mathematics are in there of course, but it is hard to imagine them being more poorly presented. I highly recommend reading Bell's Men of Mathematics if you want to gain some insight into the great ideas of mathematics written by someone of a broad mind and sound judgement who happens to know how to write. Of course, if you want to be a better mathematician, bust out your Calc book and do some problems. This book tries to be both narrative and teacher's aide and ends up being neither.
Rating: 
Summary: This is a Curious Book
Review: In "Mathematics for the Million," Hogben takes the reader through the entire evolution of mathematics. He begins with ancient farmers whose meager math skills consisted of knowing the values 1, 2, 3, and "more than three," and shows how these skills grew out of necessity as societies became more complex. Hogben's goals are twofold. First, he means to educate the average person so that math won't remain the esoteric domain of academics. Second, he means to demonstrate that mathematical advances occur when math is used to solve real problems, and not when it's used as intellectual entertainment for an idle leisure class. Hogben succeeds on both accounts, and in doing so he (very subtly) develops a theory which anticipates the structural Marxism of the '50s and '60s, including the work of Louis Althusser, Herbert Marcuse, and Jurgen Habermas. But Hogben's real magic is that he makes all this accessible to anyone: Even those with no math background at all will be doing calculus by the end of the book, even performing calculations to measure the Earth's circumference or the distance to the moon. Never has such an opaque subject been as lucid as in "Mathematics for the Million."
Rating:
Summary: Not a Stalinist
Review: Repeat, not a Stalinist. Among Lancelot Hogben's points in this book is to tell a story, not to promote a political position. Albeit, his story has a moral: When fatcats are piddling around with math-as-amusement, they are unmotivated to solve real-world problems. Hogben's goal is to educate the average Joe -- that's *your* employee, Johnny Capitalist -- so he won't be just another useless moron. Either you get it or you don't. Regardless of whether or not you believe in social progress, we could all use the math.
Rating:
Summary: Not a Stalinist
Review: Repeat, not a Stalinist. Among Lancelot Hogben's points in this book is to tell a story, not to promote a political position. Albeit, his story has a moral: When fatcats are piddling around with math-as-amusement, they are unmotivated to solve real-world problems. Hogben's goal is to educate the average Joe -- that's *your* employee, Johnny Capitalist -- so he won't be just another useless moron. Either you get it or you don't. Regardless of whether or not you believe in social progress, we could all use the math.
Rating: 
Summary: High School Math for the Educated Adult
Review: When first written (1930s), this book was a sweeping overview of the importance of math in history. Since then, it has become a remarkable part of that history: a popular, enduring encapsulation of what an educated non-mathematician should know.
What this book won't do? It won't teach you how to do math that you didn't already know. As an instructional textbook, it's a bit of a flop (hence, only 4 stars for a book I consider a must-have). It doesn't introduce ideas in a step-by-step manner, and exercises in logarithms are over-represented for a post-modern audience (we now use pocket calculators instead of log tables).
But for someone who has been through the sometimes painful, but ultimately enlightening, process of learning high-school math, Mathematics for the Million is a gem of a work, that makes it all clear in a broad historical context.
To wit, a competent high-schooler who has completed a solid program in geometry and trigonometry has at her disposal as much mathematical knowledge as the most learned Ancient Greek philosopher. She can measure the circumference of the earth, and calculate the position and trajectory of the stars. She can prove the Pythagorean theorem, and apply it to basic problems in architecture, engineering, and construction.
From the discovery of zero and negative numbers, to geometry, to calculus, math continues to define how things are done, and how we understand the universe. The author helps us to appreciate just how much the geometry we teach schoolchildren really did change the world. Not bad for an inexpensive little 70-year-old math book!
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