What We Are Reading Today: ‘Calculus Reordered’

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Updated 17 January 2026
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Calculus Reordered’

  • David Bressoud explains why calculus is credited to 17-century figures Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, how it was shaped by Italian philosophers such as Galileo Galilei, and how its current structure sprang from developments in the 19th century

Author: DAVID BRESSOUD

“Calculus Reordered” tells the remarkable story of how calculus grew over centuries into the subject we know today.

David Bressoud explains why calculus is credited to 17-century figures Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, how it was shaped by Italian philosophers such as Galileo Galilei, and how its current structure sprang from developments in the 19th century.

Bressoud reveals problems with the standard ordering of its curriculum—limits, differentiation, integration, and series—and he argues that a pedagogy informed by the historical evolution of calculus represents a sounder way for students to learn this fascinating area of mathematics.

 


What We Are Reading Today: The Letter of the Law by Jeanne-Marie Jackson

Updated 07 February 2026
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What We Are Reading Today: The Letter of the Law by Jeanne-Marie Jackson

The African Gold Coast writer and statesman J. E. Casely Hayford (1866–1930) was a key figure in liberal anticolonial thought as well as African and British imperial literary and intellectual history.

In this revisionist account, Jeanne-Marie Jackson positions his career as an intriguing case study of anticolonial literature and politics.

Jackson maps the contours of Casely Hayford’s thought through sustained attention to his written work within its Gold Coast and British imperial contexts, demonstrating the far-reaching conceptual resources of his legal background.