I'm sure I have the text lying around somewhere. I can't remember the title and author, but in any case the text was just a compilation of relevant excerpts fro

I'm sure I have the text lying around somewhere. I can't remember the title and author, but in any case the text was just a compilation of relevant excerpts from primary sources to be used as reference. It didn't provide any analysis. All the analysis was provided by the professor, Karen Parshall, whose courses I can enthusiastically recommend for anyone at U.Va. interested in the history of math or science (bonus: they satisfy your 2nd writing requirement). Her website is here: http://www.math.virginia.edu/~khp3k/ http://www.math.virginia.edu/~khp3k/ I credit her for pointing out the fact that I note in my original comment, that an equation can be equivalent to a large tract of text. She made the point in the context of why more "advanced" mathematics couldn't have developed before symbolic notation had matured sufficiently to support it. Here, I'm generalizing her point to explain why reading a mathematical text dense in equations might take longer than the page count alone might suggest.