Content area
Full Text
INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL MATHEMATICS WITH CASE STUDIES IN THE OTOMIES AND INCAS by Thomas E. Gilsdorf Wiley, 2012,287 pp. ISBN: 978-1-118-11552-7
Since mathematicians and mathematics educators began taking the interplay between mathematics and culture seriously some 40 years ago, numerous books on the subject of ethnomathematics have been published. However, Thomas Gilsdorfs book, Introduction to Cultural Mathematics, is, according to my research, the first one written specifically as a textbook.
Gilsdorf defines cultural mathematics as "the study of activities that we can identify as mathematical, from one or more cultures", (p. 9) Introduction to Cultural Mathematics is divided into two parts. The first part presents the general concepts of cultural mathematics while the second part offers Gilsdorfs applications of these concepts to the Otomies of Mexico and the Incas of Peru.
The book begins with an...