This book will appeal to both undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics and the history of science, and also to teachers and mathematicians who wish to obtain a historical perspective of the field. The text has been designed to be self-contained, but some familiarity with basic mathematical structures and with some elementary notions of linear algebra is desirable for a good understanding of the technical discussions in the later chapters.

Contents: Quadratic Equations; Cubic Equations; Quartic Equations; The Creation of Polynomials; A Modern Approach to Polynomials; Alternative Methods for Cubic and Quartic Equations; Roots of Unity; Symmetric Functions; The Fundamental Theorem of Algebra; Lagrange; Vandermande; Gauss on Cyclotomic Equations; Ruffini and Abel on General Equations; Galois.

Readership: Upper level undergraduates, graduate students and mathematicians in algebra.  less