Ninety per cent of all the mathematics we know has been discovered (or invented), in the last hundred years... the advances made in each of some doze… - George Frederick James Temple

What would geometry be without Gauss, mathematical logic without Boole, algebra without Hamilton, analysis without Cauchy?

The professional mathematician can scarcely avoid specialization and needs to transcend his private interests and take a wide synoptic view of the whole landscape of contemporary mathematics. His scientific colleagues are continually seeking enlightenment on the relevance of mathematical abstractions. The undergraduate needs a guidebook to the topography of the immense and expanding world of mathematics. There seems to be only one way to satisfy these varied interests... a concise historical account of the main currents... Only by a study of the development of mathematics can its contemporary significance be understood.

The function of logic in mathematics is critical rather than constructive.