Loving + Hating Mathematics: Challenging the Myths of Mathematical Life Hardcover - 2010

From the rear cover

"This is a perceptive and compassionate book on the joys and terrors that learning mathematics often produces. It is also a rich example of the kinds of insights that come from the collaboration of a mathematician and a psychologist."--Jerome Bruner, author of The Process of Education

"This is a book for everyone who ever loved or hated mathematics. It shows mathematics as it really is: emotional, imaginative, beautiful, terrifying, deeply spiritual, metaphorical, and very political--anything but the dry, computational, right-or-wrong manipulation of symbols that is all too often taught as 'mathematics.'"--George Lakoff, University of California, Berkeley

"A Noah's Ark of mathematicians, their lives, loves, hard times, and madnesses, Loving and Hating Mathematics shows our community with all its warts as well as its triumphs. I especially liked the chapter on much-hated school mathematics, 'Almost All Children Left Behind.'"--David Mumford, former president, International Mathematical Union

"This book reminds me of James Gleick's Chaos. The ideas and stories in Loving and Hating Mathematics are timely, interesting, and sometimes even profound. The authors, writing for nonspecialists, take pains to explain technical ideas in nontechnical language, and the book should interest general readers as well as a large mathematical audience."--Steven G. Krantz, Washington University in St. Louis

"The authors explore a fascinating topic in colorful and compelling ways."--Howard Gardner, Harvard Graduate School of Education

"Loving and Hating Mathematics discusses subjects that are not normally addressed at all--the human, psychological, social, and cultural dimensions of math. The book contains a wealth of stories and anecdotes that together humanize mathematics, support a different way of thinking about its nature, and break down the barriers between math and the wider world. This is an interesting and important book."--William Byers, author of How Mathematicians Think

Media reviews

Citations

• Booklist, 11/01/2010, Page 8
• Choice, 06/01/2011, Page 0
• Library Journal, 09/15/2010, Page 98