January’s Book of the Month is Mathematics for the Million: How to Master the Magic of Numbers by Lancelot Hogben. First published in 1936 and reprinted many times.
From the Prologue: “The customary way of writing a book about mathematics is show how each step follows logically from the one before without telling you what use there will be in taking it. This book is written to show you how each step follows historically from the step before and what use it will be to you or someone else if it is taken. The first method repels many people who are intelligent and socially alive, because intelligent people are suspicious of mere logic, and people who are socially alive regard the human brain as an instrument for social activity”
Chapters:
Mathematics in Remote Antiquity
The Grammar of Size, Order, and Shape
Euclid as a Springboard
Number Lore in Antiquity
The Rise and Decline of the Alexandrian Culture
The Dawn of Nothing
Mathematics for the Mariner
The Geometry of Motion
Logarithms and the Search for Series
The Calculus of Newton and Leibnitz
The Algebra of the Chessboard
The Algebra of Choice and Chance