Counting
Humans, History and the Infinite Lives of Numbers
Published on 17. July 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
384 pages
978-0-00-843650-6 (ISBN)
Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE PRIZE 2025
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NEUMANN PRIZE 2025
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO COUNT? WHY ARE HUMANS THE ONLY SPECIES ON EARTH THAT CAN DO IT? WHERE DID COUNTING COME FROM? HOW HAS IT SHAPED SOCIETIES ALONG THE WAY? AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?
Counting is an innovative, erudite, world-wrapping journey through humanity's marvellous ability to impose numbers on things. Acclaimed historian and mathematician Benjamin Wardhaugh draws on stories from the Stone Age to cyberspace in pursuit of the elusive, fascinating, endlessly diverse history of human counting.
Starting with the roots of counting in human brains, bodies and environments, Wardhaugh tours us around the world and through time while exploring the different flavours of counting that have developed over millennia. We meet the makers of bead necklaces in ancient South Africa, the inventors of writing in the world ' s first metropolis, and the 'counter culture' of classical Athens. We see counting used - and changed - by Indian scholars, Chinese peasants and Papuan shopkeepers; we meet the distinctive numerate agendas of Mayan kings, US governments and Korean vloggers.
Weaving these stories together, Wardhaugh shows how cultures have shaped counting, and how counting has shaped culture, in a rich tapestry spanning thousands of years. This is the vast story of human attempts to find some order in an unruly world; or, perhaps, to impose on a reluctant world the order that humans find within themselves. It is a history as wide, deep and tangled as that of humanity itself
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NEUMANN PRIZE 2025
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO COUNT? WHY ARE HUMANS THE ONLY SPECIES ON EARTH THAT CAN DO IT? WHERE DID COUNTING COME FROM? HOW HAS IT SHAPED SOCIETIES ALONG THE WAY? AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?
Counting is an innovative, erudite, world-wrapping journey through humanity's marvellous ability to impose numbers on things. Acclaimed historian and mathematician Benjamin Wardhaugh draws on stories from the Stone Age to cyberspace in pursuit of the elusive, fascinating, endlessly diverse history of human counting.
Starting with the roots of counting in human brains, bodies and environments, Wardhaugh tours us around the world and through time while exploring the different flavours of counting that have developed over millennia. We meet the makers of bead necklaces in ancient South Africa, the inventors of writing in the world ' s first metropolis, and the 'counter culture' of classical Athens. We see counting used - and changed - by Indian scholars, Chinese peasants and Papuan shopkeepers; we meet the distinctive numerate agendas of Mayan kings, US governments and Korean vloggers.
Weaving these stories together, Wardhaugh shows how cultures have shaped counting, and how counting has shaped culture, in a rich tapestry spanning thousands of years. This is the vast story of human attempts to find some order in an unruly world; or, perhaps, to impose on a reluctant world the order that humans find within themselves. It is a history as wide, deep and tangled as that of humanity itself
Reviews / Votes
Praise for The Book of Wonders:'An astonishingly readable and informative history of the greatest mathematical bestseller of all time, from ancient Greece to dark energy. The writing is vivid and the stories are gripping. Highly recommended!'
Ian Stewart, author of Significant Figures
'Benjamin Wardhaugh is an excellent storyteller and his collected short story approach to the history of The Elements works splendidly... simultaneously educational, entertaining and illuminating ... A highly desirable read for all those, both professional and amateur, who interest themselves in the histories of mathematics, science and knowledge ... over almost two and a half millennia'
Thony Christie, The Renaissance Mathematicus
Praise for Gunpowder and Geometry:
'Meticulous yet lively biography, even those who have never heard of its subject could hardly disagree'
Sunday Times
'As this book argues persuasively, he changed a whole culture: by simple dint of his genial celebrity as well as a europhile passion for developments in France and elsewhere, he helped to elevate mathematics to a rank equal with the other sciences. It is impossible not to warm to such a man in Wardhaugh's wryly sympathetic telling ... Spirited and elegantly erudite'
Daily Telegraph
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers
Product notice
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
340 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-00-843650-6 (9780008436506)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Person
Benjamin Wardhaugh is a Fifty-pound Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. His research focuses on the history of numeracy and mathematics, and the ways mathematics influences and is a part of cultures. His work focuses mainly on topics in early modern Britain, including mathematical music theory in that period. He has taught in both the Mathematical Institute and the History Faculty. He is the author of Gunpowder and Geometry and Encounters with Euclid.