Description
Book SynopsisApplies contemporary rhetorical analysis to mathematical discourse, calling into question the commonly held view that math equals truth. Explores how mathematical innovation has historically relied on rhetorical practices of making meaning, such as analogy, metaphor, and invention.
Trade Review“Offering a translative resource for the chaos of that bonding and severing, strengthening and weakening, weaving and unraveling, The Evolution of Mathematics leaves no doubt that both dire consequences and dynamic possibilities are at stake in rhetoric’s ongoing confrontation and engagement with the mathematical realities of the world.”
—Crystal Broch Colombini The Quarterly Journal of Speech
“Certainly, one of the most incisive books published in 2022.”
—Cliff Cunningham Sun News Austin
“Reyes’s knowledge of and engagement with mathematics are breathtaking in scope. The Evolution of Mathematics is rhetorically engaging as it winds its way through the rabbit hole of mathematical philosophy, history, and technological innovation. Mathematicians will learn about the stakes of their invention and translation practices while rhetoricians will find yet another plane within which rhetoric functions and can be engaged and assessed.”
—Catherine Chaput,author of Inside the Teaching Machine: Rhetoric and the Globalization of the U.S. Public Research University