I really liked the premise of this book and thought it was a great idea.

The book itself is split into clear chapters however it was so advanced. If you have a good understanding of maths I think this would be very interesting but a lot went over my head. I'm not bad at maths, did well in GCSE but as I dont use maths everyday I found it a bit complex.

Thank you for the arc.

Thank you to NetGalley and Basic Books for the chance to read an early copy of this book!

This is a fantastically fun journey through our world and how math underlies our 21st-century lives. I love that the author focuses on topics where the mathematical discoveries have completely unexpected applications, often centuries later, like how solving a puzzle about bridges in the 1700s now helps match up kidney donations. I also love that the author hits some hot topics -- we start off with the mathematics of political districts, and I read that chapter just as the census results came out; we also hit cybersecurity, GPS, and climate change. The author keeps the tone accessible, often simplifying the math in order to keep the book suitable for the average reader (and telling us when he's doing so).

I can already think of three different people who would love this book -- it will make a great gift for people who love to learn, and will enjoy the conversational tone as well as the sense of wonder and exploration.

Beware The Mathivores. And Stewart's Myopia. Ok, so the title of this review is a bit of a spoiler, as a "Mathivore" is a creature Stewart describes in the final chapter while summarizing the book. But it doesn't *actually* give anything away, and it makes for an interesting title to the review. (One suspects it wouldn't have worked as well for the title of the book, though I think it would have been awesome. :D) Beyond that, I also find it interesting that the only other review on Goodreads for this book at the time I am writing this one is from a historian with a bare knowledge of mathematics, and I am actually a mathematician (though nowhere near as degreed as Stewart, having just a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and lacking a handful of classes for separate Bachelor's degrees in both Mathematics and Secondary Mathematics Education) with a fair knowledge of history. More than a "normal" person, likely much less - at least in some areas - than the other reviewer. ANYWAY, y'all care about what this book is about, not about me. :D But my background does play a bit into my own experience with the book, so I thought a brief summary was warranted.

With this book, Stewart *mostly* does a truly remarkable job of showing the history and current uses of math, in many ways many may not be aware of or at minimum fully aware of. With my background, I knew that there was *some* form of math in the background of most of the techs and issues Stewart discusses, but Stewart goes full-bore on the details, yes, quite often showing samples of the actual equations - or at least types of the actual equations - involved. And these are far beyond E=MC^2, y'all. ;) But still, Stewart's explanations, at least to my own mathematically inclined brain, were straightforward enough, and there is enough humor (of the British variety) sprinkled throughout to make the overall text much more palatable to the average reader.

But there *are* a couple of weaknesses even from my own perspective, and they combined to knock the book down a star - neither by themselves was quite enough, but combined they are.

The first is that while Stewart does a remarkable job of showing how math is integral to so many fields from elections to medical scanning to photography to fingerprinting, he doesn't do so well in showing how it shapes everyday life outside of the tech people use and the things going on around them. He doesn't show how people actually *use* math every day, from calculating how much a trip will take to estimating their grocery bill or restaurant tab to deciding any of the numerous factors related to personal finance and building or maintaining any form of home. Perhaps a follow-on book could explain how these maths shape even more people's lives.

The second is Stewart's Myopia. By this, I mean those issues where the Professor. At several key points - likely not caught by someone less familiar with the mathematics of the fields - Stewart dismisses advances in mathematics that oppose his positions. In one, while there is indeed still much work to be done, Stewart's disdain for autonomous cars belies the stunning advances made in mathematics related to the field. In the other big one, Stewart seems completely ignorant of the emerging mathematics showing the many varying holes in the current "Climate Change" "science" - including some written by a man who quite literally wrote one of the first textbooks on climate modeling with computers. Another, more obscure one, was where Stewart mentions numeracy and Bayesian statistics, but seems ignorant of Bernoulli's Fallacy (or at minimum dismissive of those who pursue that line of mathematical thinking).

Overall, this *is* a strong book with quite a bit to be commended. It could simply have been a bit stronger. Very much recommended.

As a historian, my knowledge of math is lacking. I managed to take the minimum number of classes in college, and always felt it was a "left brain" thing that wouldn't jive well with my "Right brain" dominated mind.

Stewart manages to dispel that belief, and, more importantly, he makes math more relevant than ever. As someone who lives in the humanities, I didn't buy his argument that people today don't seem to care about math. Ask anyone about what the rest of society thinks about his/her passion, and they'll say the same thing: it's not appreciated. I feel STEM is pushed on kids more than ever, and while they may not be doing the actual calculating, they certainly are going into fields that rely on it. Maybe monitor it?

That being said, I think this book gives a lot to how important mathematics is to other fields of study. After all, nothing is contained in a vacuum. Gerrymandering's math, which is something that I have never thought about, and how the world of business collides with computation, show that it's there, lurking under the surface.

I felt that the chapters often began great, and was appreciative of the visuals that Stewart includes. My only hangup was that sometimes, I felt like he needed to "slow down" and explain a little more. There were several times I had to go back and reread what he was trying to say, to think about the logic of the math he was incorporating. At times, I felt that I still didn't have the mathematical background to get all I could have out of the book. Still, overall, a unique read