A History of Abstract Algebra

Jeremy Gray is a leading historian of modern mathematics. He has been awarded the Leon Whiteman Prize of the American Mathematical Society and the Neugebauer Prize of the European Mathematical Society for his work, and is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

Introduction.- 1 Simple quadratic forms.- 2 Fermat's Last Theorem.- 3 Lagrange's theory of quadratic forms.- 4 Gauss's Disquisitiones Arithmeticae.- 5 Cyclotomy.- 6 Two of Gauss's proofs of quadratic reciprocity.- 7 Dirichlet's Lectures.- 8 Is the quintic unsolvable?.- 9 The unsolvability of the quintic.- 10 Galois's theory.- 11 After Galois - Introduction.- 12 Revision and first assignment.- 13 Jordan's Traité.- 14 Jordan and Klein.- 15 What is 'Galois theory'?.- 16 Algebraic number theory: cyclotomy.- 17 Dedekind's first theory of ideals.- 18 Dedekind's later theory of ideals.- 19 Quadratic forms and ideals.- 20 Kronecker's algebraic number theory.- 21 Revision and second assignment.- 22 Algebra at the end of the 19th century.- 23 The concept of an abstract field.- 24 Ideal theory.- 25 Invariant theory.- 26 Hilbert's Zahlbericht.- 27 The rise of modern algebra - group theory.- 28 Emmy Noether.- 29 From Weber to van der Waerden.- 30 Revision and final assignment.- A Polynomial equations in the 18th Century.- B Gauss and composition of forms.- C Gauss on quadratic reciprocity.- D From Jordan's Traité.- E Klein's Erlanger Programm.- F From Dedekind's 11th supplement.- G Subgroups of S4 and S5.- H Curves.- I Resultants.- Bibliography.- Index.

"This volume is well written and nicely complements other works on the history of algebra. It can be recommended to all mathematicians and students of mathematics who want to understand how algebra turned into the rather abstract field it is today." (C. Baxa, Monatshefte für Mathematik, Vol. 201 (4), August, 2023)

"The book under review is an excellent contribution to the history of abstract algebra and the beginnings of algebraic number theory. I recommend it to everyone interested in the history of mathematics." (Franz Lemmermeyer, zbMATH 1411.01005, 2019)
"This is a nice book to have around; it reflects careful scholarship and is filled with interesting material. ... there is much tolike about this book. It is quite detailed, contains a lot of information, is meticulously researched, and has an extensive bibliography. Anyone interested in the history of mathematics, or abstract algebra, will want to make the acquaintance of this book." (Mark Hunacek, MAA Reviews, June 24, 2019)