[author role=”private”]Toby Holtz, tholtz@barnard.edu[/private]
This was a large format hardcover book from 1950’s (maybe 1960’s). Cover had picture of yellow pyramid(s) against blue sky, with drawings of Egyptian, Greek, Renaissance mathematicians. Inside had chapters about math and science (astronomy, physics, etc.) through the ages, i.e. early man looking at stars, Egyptians building pyramids, Greeks measuring land, medieval development of arithmetic, Renaissance architecture and Galileo’s physics and Newton’s calculus applied to science, etc. Pages had text and colored drawings as illustrations, and some portraits of mathematicians. Maybe title was “Lore and Legend of Mathematics.” The name “Langston” may be one of the names of one of the authors. It may have been a type of Golden book. (There was another, similar book about the history of music, with a gray cover showing a drawing of a brown violin and a gold colored brass instrument.)