Books in the Prelude Science Classics series

Taking only a modicum of knowledge for granted, Lancelot Hogben leads readers of this famous book through the whole course from simple arithmetic to calculus. Mathematics is the language of size, shape, and order - a language Hogben shows one can both master and enjoy.

From the pestilence which contributed to the downfall of Rome to the dancing manias of medieval Europe, the aristocracy's fashion for wearing wigs and the role of typhus in the First World War, Hans Zinsser reveals just how disease and epidemics have shaped human history.