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Viking has pre-empted a “ground-breaking” non-Western history of maths by Dr Tomoko L Kitagawa and Dr Timothy Revell in a “significant” deal.
The publisher bought world rights, excluding Japan, to The Secret Lives of Numbers from Max Edwards and Toby Mundy at Aevitas Creative Management UK, who had turned down four previous pre-empt attempts. Viking said it was fielding international offers within hours of acquiring and sold US rights to Nick Amphlett at William Morrow in a six-figure pre-empt. It will be published as a hardback in the UK in spring 2023.
Viking explained: “The protagonists of this book won’t be familiar to most readers. Pythagoras, Newton and Descartes seldom feature. Instead, it highlights the remarkable lives and works of a diverse group of pioneers, who fought millennia of oppression to leave a spectacular legacy of mind-melting ideas and theorems. Kitagawa and Revell bring to life the stories of mathematicians from every continent, from the brilliant Arabic scholars of the 9th Century ‘House of Wisdom’; to the pioneering African-American mathematicians of the 20th Century; from the first female mathematics professor (from Russia); to the 'lady computers' around the world who revolutionised our knowledge of the night sky.
“The authors want passionately to inspire people of every background to believe that mathematics is a subject for them. This ground-breaking book changes how we view our mathematical past, casting fresh light on the possibilities for the future.”
Kitagawa is a historian specialising in the mathematical cultures of Europe, East Asia, and South Africa at Oxford University. After a stint as a diplomat at the United Nations in New York, she received her PhD in history from Princeton University. She has taught at Harvard University and held research positions at UC Berkeley, University of Cambridge and the Max Planck Institute. Based in Oxford, she works as an occasional broadcaster, with appearances on Netflix, CNN, the History Channel and the BBC.
Revell is a science journalist and “lapsed mathematician” who currently works as culture and comment editor at New Scientist. As a reporter and editor, he specialises in technology and mathematics, covering everything from artificial intelligence to the Abel Prize. He also currently runs New Scientist’s diversity internship scheme. He often appears on the BBC radio show “The Naked Scientists”, including a slot answering listener questions about mathematics.
Editor Connor Brown said: “This authoritative, accessible and genuinely revisionist history is long overdue. Readers around the world are hungry for stories from beyond the West and for stories about women in STEM – this book delivers on both fronts. I couldn’t be more proud to be publishing this at Viking.”
Edwards added: “Tomoko and Timothy make an incredible team – bringing academic expertise and journalistic flair to this vital, engaging and fascinating mathematical history. Toby and I can't wait for readers around the world to discover these incredible stories.”