This book is not a conventional history of mathematics as such, a museum of documents and scientific curiosities. Instead, it identifies this vital science with the thought of those who constructed it and in its relation to the changing cultural context in which it evolved. Particular emphasis is placed on the philosophic and logical systems, from Aristotle onward, that provide the basis for the fusion of mathematics and logic in contemporary thought. Ettore Carruccio covers the evolution of mathematics from the most ancient times to our own day. In simple and non-technical language, he observes the changes that have taken place in the conception of rational theory, until we reach the lively, delicate and often disconcerting problems of modern logical analysis. The book contains an unusual wealth of detail (including specimen demonstrations) on such subjects as the critique of Euclid's fifth postulate, the rise of non-Euclidean geometry, the introduction of theories of infinite sets, the construction of abstract geometry, and-in a notably intelligible discussion-the development of modern symbolic logic and meta-mathematics. Scientific problems in general and mathematical problems in particular show their full meaning only when they are considered in the light of their own history. This book accordingly takes the reader to the heart of mathematical questions, in a way that teacher, student and layman alike will find absorbing and illuminating. The history of mathematics is a field that continues to fascinate people interested in the course of creativity, and logical inference u quite part and in addition to those with direct mathematical interests.

In their heyday, the English public schools inspired an astonishing effusion of novels and stories about school life, of which Tom Brown's Schooldays is perhaps still the best known, and was certainly the most influential. Continually counterpointing school life as it really was with its fictional image, Isabel Quigly discusses her chosen stories in relation to those themes which recur in the genre: the cult of games, the love story, the boarding school as a training ground for the Empire, schoolboy heroics and an extraordinary preoccupation with death. Her range is wide: from classics like Stalky & Co, Anstey's Vice Versa, and P. G. Wodehouse's school stories, to the schoolgirl tales of Angela Brazil: from nostalgic and snobbish accounts of Eton to Alec Waugh's daring and precocious novel, The Loom of Youth. The Heirs of Tom Brown is an entertaining and original investigation into the literary, social and cultural history of the English school story. 'An excellent guide to this curious but interesting chapter in social and literary history' John Rae, Listener

Kipling portrays school as the first stage of a much larger game, a pattern-maker for the experiences of life. Implied throughout the stories is the question 'What happened to these fifteen-year-old boys, and how did the lessons they learned at school apply to the world of warfare and imperial government?' The stories are based on Kipling's own school, the United Services College at Westward Ho! in Devon, which prepared boys destined for the army or for colonial service; Kipling himself appears as the subordinate character, Beetle. This edition includes five Stalky stories which did not appear in the original volume, and thus constitutes a Complete Stalky & Co. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.