180 pages
English language
Published Aug. 8, 2001 by Hill and Wang.
Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences is a 1988 book by mathematician John Allen Paulos about innumeracy (deficiency of numeracy) as the mathematical equivalent of illiteracy: incompetence with numbers rather than words. Innumeracy is a problem with many otherwise educated and knowledgeable people.
Stupendous! Paulos does a fantastic job of outlining the horrible ways that a basic lack of number-awareness can wreak havoc upon our lives - from the banal, household things to worldwide political decisions. I highly recommend.
This book is great! My only complaint is that Paulos saves his pithy, heartfelt motivation for writing it until the end. I feel like many readers -- perhaps precisely the ones who would benefit from reading this book -- will be put off by his snarky insouciance (not to mention his more-challenging-than-he-thinks statistical problems) without knowing its larger context.
