Download or read book Mathematics Administrative and Economic Activities in Ancient Worlds written by Cécile Michel and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the ancient Near East, early imperial China, South-East Asia, and medieval Europe, shedding light on mathematical knowledge and practices documented by sources relating to the administrative and economic activities of officials, merchants and other actors. It compares these to mathematical texts produced in related school contexts or reflecting the pursuit of mathematics for its own sake to reveal the diversity of mathematical practices in each of these geographical areas of the ancient world. Based on case studies from various periods and political, economic and social contexts, it explores how, in each part of the world discussed, it is possible to identify and describe the different cultures of quantification and computation as well as their points of contact. The thirteen chapters draw on a wide variety of texts from ancient Near East, China, South-East Asia and medieval Europe, which are analyzed by researchers from various fields, including mathematics, history, philology, archaeology and economics. The book will appeal to historians of science, economists and institutional historians of the ancient and medieval world, and also to Assyriologists, Indologists, Sinologists and experts on medieval Europe.

Download or read book Cultures of Computation and Quantification in the Ancient World written by Karine Chemla and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-01-01 with total page 764 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book sheds light on the variety of mathematical cultures in general. To do so, it concentrates on cultures of computation and quantification in the ancient world, mainly in ancient China, South Asia, and the Ancient Near East and offers case studies focused on numbers, quantities, and operations, in particular in relation to mathematics as well as administrative and economic activities. The various chapters focus on the different ways and contexts of shaping numbers and quantities, and on the procedures applied to them. The book places special emphasis on the processes of emergence of place-value number systems, evidenced in the three geographical areas under study All these features yield essential elements that will enable historians of mathematics to further capture the diversity of computation practices in their contexts, whereas previous historical approaches have tended to emphasize elements that displayed uniformity within “civilizational” blocks. The book includes editions and translations of texts, some of them published here for the first time, maps, and conventions for editions of ancient texts. It thereby offers primary sources and methodological tools for teaching and learning. The volume is aimed at historians and philosophers of science and mathematics, historians of the ancient worlds, historians of economics, sinologists, indologists, assyriologists, as well as undergraduate, graduate students and teachers in mathematics, the history and philosophy of science and mathematics, and in the history of ancient worlds.

Download or read book Knowledge Literacy and Elementary Education in the Old Babylonian Period written by Robert Middeke-Conlin and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-12-11 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines education as a means to explore knowledge and literacy in the Old Babylonian period. It further employs a new method to research these topics. Contrary to numerous existing studies on the subject, the author examines elementary education globally, that is, in pursuit of Old Babylonian education in its entirety. Typically, education is examined in a piecemeal fashion. It's as if education centered on lexicography alone or mathematics alone. This work encompasses a view about educational content and knowledge systems, as opposed to only specific aspects or branches of them. In doing so, a characterization of institution and society is made possible allowing the work to open new general perspectives on Mesopotamian knowledge, literacy, and education.

Download or read book Shaping the Sciences of the Ancient and Medieval World written by Agathe Keller and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Gastrointestinal Disease and Its Treatment in Ancient Mesopotamia written by J. Cale Johnson and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-11-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Babylonian medicine is the most important corpus of ancient medicine prior to the Greeks. This volume provides a comprehensive picture of how gasrtrointestinal illness, jaundice and related fevers, as well as diarrhea were treated in ancient Mesopotamia. The editions include transliterations, straightforward translations and essential commentary, and are divided into three main sections: the standard corpus for the treatment of gastrointestinal illness in Royal Library in Nineveh (otherwise known as the sualu subcorpus), the related group of texts that attribute intestinal disturbances to malevolent ghosts and a third group of texts focused on diarrhea. In addition to the standard compendia, isolated precursor texts, which were incorporated into these compendia, are included here in appendices. This volume provides an overarching picture of the entire field of gastrointestinal illnesses and related conditions in ancient Mesopotamia.

Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Early Chinese History written by Paul R. Goldin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 726 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of early China has been radically transformed over the past fifty years by archaeological discoveries, including both textual and non-textual artefacts. Excavations of settlements and tombs have demonstrated that most people did not lead their lives in accordance with ritual canons, while previously unknown documents have shown that most received histories were written retrospectively by victors and present a correspondingly anachronistic perspective. This handbook provides an authoritative survey of the major periods of Chinese history from the Neolithic era to the fall of the Latter Han Empire and the end of antiquity (AD 220). It is the first volume to include not only a comprehensive review of political history but also detailed treatments of topics that transcend particular historical periods, such as: Warfare and political thought Cities and agriculture Language and art Medicine and mathematics Providing a detailed analysis of the most up-to-date research by leading scholars in the field of early Chinese history, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Chinese history, Asian archaeology, and Chinese studies in general.

Download or read book Mathematics in Ancient Iraq written by Eleanor Robson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monumental book traces the origins and development of mathematics in the ancient Middle East, from its earliest beginnings in the fourth millennium BCE to the end of indigenous intellectual culture in the second century BCE when cuneiform writing was gradually abandoned. Eleanor Robson offers a history like no other, examining ancient mathematics within its broader social, political, economic, and religious contexts, and showing that mathematics was not just an abstract discipline for elites but a key component in ordering society and understanding the world. The region of modern-day Iraq is uniquely rich in evidence for ancient mathematics because its prehistoric inhabitants wrote on clay tablets, many hundreds of thousands of which have been archaeologically excavated, deciphered, and translated. Drawing from these and a wealth of other textual and archaeological evidence, Robson gives an extraordinarily detailed picture of how mathematical ideas and practices were conceived, used, and taught during this period. She challenges the prevailing view that they were merely the simplistic precursors of classical Greek mathematics, and explains how the prevailing view came to be. Robson reveals the true sophistication and beauty of ancient Middle Eastern mathematics as it evolved over three thousand years, from the earliest beginnings of recorded accounting to complex mathematical astronomy. Every chapter provides detailed information on sources, and the book includes an appendix on all mathematical cuneiform tablets published before 2007.

Download or read book Visions of Applied Mathematics written by Sergio Plata and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2007 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the creation of knowledge in applied mathematics. It mainly analyses applications of mathematical theories in several contexts. The author analyses the generation of advanced theories that enable people to understand problems in a scientific way, and proposes cognitive models dealing with the observation of human behaviour and its abstraction into comprehensible mathematical models, as this is a main problem in our modern world. This work is directed at people concerned with understanding cognitive processes when tackling complex problems, as it shows the building of knowledge in the making of scientific approaches to any discipline. Using a cross-disciplinary approach, he focuses on the key issues of theories and technologies applicable in a wide variety of contexts, for example in military organizations, in research and development departments and in general strategic planning, as shown in applied cases in Latin America.

Download or read book The Making of a Scribe written by Robert Middeke-Conlin and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-03-11 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a novel methodology to study economic texts. The author investigates discrepancies in these writings by focusing on errors, mistakes, and rounding numbers. In particular, he looks at the acquisition, use, and development of practical mathematics in an ancient society: The Old Babylonian kingdom of Larsa (beginning of the second millennium BCE Southern Iraq). In so doing, coverage bridges a gap between the sciences and humanities. Through this work, the reader will gain insight into discrepancies encountered in economic texts in general and rounding numbers in particular. They will learn a new framework to explain error as a form of economic practice. Researchers and students will also become aware of the numerical and metrological basis for calculation in these writings and how the scribes themselves conceptualized value. This work fills a void in Assyriological studies. It provides a methodology to explore, understand, and exploit statistical data. The anlaysis also fills a void in the history of mathematics by presenting historians of mathematics a method to study practical texts. In addition, the author shows the importance mathematics has as a tool for ancient practitioners to cope with complex economic processes. This serves as a useful case study for modern policy makers into the importance of education in any economy.

Download or read book Women of Assur and Kanesh written by Cécile Michel and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2020-09-18 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vivid sources for reconstructing the lives of Assyrian women In this collection Cécile Michel translates into English texts related to wives and daughters of merchants and to their activities in nineteenth-century BCE Aššur and Kaneš. Discovered in excavations of the Old Assyrian private archives at Kültepe (ancient Kaneš) in Central Anatolia, these letters sent from Aššur reflect the preeminent role of Assyrian women within the family and in the domestic economy, as well as their contribution to long-distance trade. Contracts and other legal texts excavated at Kültepe attest to Assyrian and Anatolian women as parties in marriage and divorce contracts, last wills, loans, and purchase contracts. These unique finds paint a vivid portrait of women who aspire to be socially respected and provide a rare opportunity to reconstruct their daily lives as both businesswomen and housewives. Features More than three hundred letters and documents transliterated and translated with commentary An overview of the study of women and gender in Assyriology A reconstruction of women's roles as textile producers, investors, and creditors within a long-distance commercial network Cécile Michel is Senior Researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS, France) and Professor at Hamburg University (Germany). She is a member of the international group of scholars in charge of the decipherment of the 23,000 tablets found at Kültepe (ancient Kaneš) and of the Kültepe archaeological team. She is the coeditor of and contributor to The Role of Women in Work and Society in the Ancient Near East (2016), Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD (2017), and Mathematics, Administrative and Economic Activities in Ancient Worlds (2020).

Download or read book Time and History in the Ancient Near East written by Lluis Feliu and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2013-06-28 with total page 861 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In July, 2010, the International Association for Assyriology met in Barcelona, Spain, for 5 days to deliver and listen to papers on the theme “Time and History in the Ancient Near East.” This volume, the proceedings of the conference, contains 70 of the papers read at the 56th annual Rencontre, including the papers from several workshop sessions on “architecture and archaeology,” “early Akkadian and its Semitic context,” “ Hurrian language,” “law in the ancient Near East,” “Middle Assyrian texts and studies,” and a variety of additional papers not directly related to the conference theme. The photo on the back cover shows only a representative portion of the attendees, who were warmly hosted by faculty and students from the University of Barcelona.

Download or read book The Early History of Economics in the United States written by Birsen Filip and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-10-24 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the latter half of the 20th century, the economics departments of American universities were internationally renowned for providing competitive and advanced levels of education. However, from the 1870s up until the beginning of WWI, German universities held international supremacy when it came to the quality of teaching, the enrollment of foreign students, and scholarly publications. This book examines the role of the German Historical School of Economics (GHSE) in the development of the discipline of economics in the US during this period. The chapters explain that, prior to the influence of the GHSE, political economy was in a dismal state in the US, both as a profession and an academic discipline. As a result, many Americans elected to go to Germany in pursuit of an advanced education in political economy, having been inspired by the unmatched international reputations of theorists of the GHSE. After they returned home, these German-trained Americans challenged the dominant status of classical orthodoxy and revolutionized the discipline of economics in the US by importing the ideas, methods, and approaches of the GHSE. In doing so, they established the first dedicated political economy departments, graduate programs, and chairs at American universities and colleges. Although the precise magnitude and value of the influence of the GHSE is impossible to quantify, there is no doubt that Americans are deeply indebted to this school of thought for its contributions to the early development of the discipline of economics in the US. The chapters also examine what has been lost since: the current mainstream in economics has eliminated many of the features that were once so important to the discipline that it has effectively limited contemporary economics to a small fraction of the complex organism defined by the German Historical School. This situation has facilitated the poverty of the leading economic school of thought, as well as the discipline of economics in general. This book represents a significant contribution to the literature on the history of economic thought and economic education in the US. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars of economics, political science, sociology, and the philosophy of economics.

Download or read book Mathematical Commentaries in the Ancient World written by Karine Chemla and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-09 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comparative analysis of the techniques and procedures of important mathematical commentaries in five ancient cultures from China to Greece.

Download or read book Perspectives on the History of Ancient Near Eastern Studies written by Agnès Garcia-Ventura and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2021-03-03 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present volume collects eighteen essays exploring the history of ancient Near Eastern studies. Combining diverse approaches—synthetic and analytic, diachronic and transnational—this collection offers critical reflections on the who, why, and how of this cluster of fields. How have political contexts determined the conduct of research? How do academic agendas reflect larger social, economic, and cultural interests? How have schools of thought and intellectual traditions configured, and sometimes predetermined, the study of the ancient Near East? Contributions treating research during the Nazi and fascist periods examine the interpenetration of academic work with politics, while contributions dealing with specific national contexts disclose fresh perspectives on individual scholars as well as the conditions and institutions in which they worked. Particular attention is given to scholarship in countries such as Turkey, Portugal, Iran, China, and Spain, which have hitherto been marginal to historiographic accounts of ancient Near Eastern studies. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Selim Ferru Adali, Silvia Alaura, Isabel Almeida, Petr Charvát, Parsa Daneshmand, Eva von Dassow, Hakan Erol, Sebastian Fink, Jakob Flygare, Pietro Giammellaro, Carlos Gonçalves, Katrien de Graef, Steven W. Holloway, Ahmed Fatima Kzzo, Changyu Liu, Patrick Maxime Michel, Emanuel Pfoh, Jitka Sýkorová, Luděk Vacín, and Jordi Vidal.

Download or read book Worlds of ScienceCraft written by Sal Restivo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-11 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A response to complex problems spanning disciplinary boundaries, Worlds of ScienceCraft offers bold new ways of conceptualizing ideas of science, sociology, and philosophy. Beginning with the historical foundations of civilization and progress, assumptions about the categories we use to talk about minds, identities, and bodies are challenged through case studies from mathematics, social cognition, and medical ethics. Offering innovative approaches to these issues, such as an integrated social brain-mind-body model and a critique of divisions between the natural and technological, this book provides novel conceptions of self, society and an emerging ’cyborg’ generation. From the micro level of brains and expanding all the way out to biopolitical civics, disciplinary boundaries are made permeable, emphasizing the increased need for interdisciplinary scholarship. By rejecting outdated and restrictive categories and classifications, new horizons in studies of science, technology, and medicine can be explored through the incorporation of feminist, international, and postmodern perspectives. A truly interdisciplinary examination of science and technology as cultural phenomena, Worlds of ScienceCraft will appeal to scholars and students of science and technology studies, as well as philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science, technology, and medicine.

Download or read book Money Machines written by Mark Coeckelbergh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While we have become increasingly vulnerable to the ebb and flow of global finance, most of us know very little about it. This book focuses on the role of technology in global finance and reflects on the ethical and societal meaning and impact of financial information and communication technologies (ICTs). Exploring the history, metaphysics, and geography of money, algorithms, and electronic currencies, the author argues that financial ICTs contribute to impersonal, disengaged, placeless, and objectifying relations, and that in the context of globalization these 'distancing' effects render it increasingly difficult to exercise and ascribe responsibility. Caught in the currents of capital, it seems that both experts and lay people have lost control and lack sufficient knowledge of what they are doing. There is too much epistemic, social, and moral distance. At the same time, the book also shows that these electronically mediated developments do not render global finance merely 'virtual', for its technological practices remain material and place-bound, and the ethical and social vulnerabilities they create are no less real. Moreover, understood in terms of technological practices, global finance remains human through and through, and there is no technological determinism. Therefore, Money Machines also examines the ways in which contemporary techno-financial developments can be resisted or re-oriented in a morally and socially responsible direction - not without, but with technology. As such, it will appeal to philosophers and scholars across the humanities and the social sciences with interests in science and technology, finance, ethics and questions of responsibility.

Download or read book The History of Mathematics A Source Based Approach written by June Barrow-Green and published by American Mathematical Society. This book was released on 2021-12-17 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The History of Mathematics: A Source-Based Approach is a comprehensive history of the development of mathematics. This, the first volume of the two-volume set, takes readers from the beginning of counting in prehistory to 1600 and the threshold of the discovery of calculus. It is notable for the extensive engagement with original—primary and secondary—source material. The coverage is worldwide, and embraces developments, including education, in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, China, India, the Islamic world and Europe. The emphasis on astronomy and its historical relationship to mathematics is new, and the presentation of every topic is informed by the most recent scholarship in the field. The two-volume set was designed as a textbook for the authors' acclaimed year-long course at the Open University. It is, in addition to being an innovative and insightful textbook, an invaluable resource for students and scholars of the history of mathematics. The authors, each among the most distinguished mathematical historians in the world, have produced over fifty books and earned scholarly and expository prizes from the major mathematical societies of the English-speaking world.