New Math
A Political History
An era of sweeping cultural change in America, the postwar years saw the rise of beatniks and hippies, the birth of feminism, and the release of the first video game. It was also the era of new math. Introduced to US schools in the late 1950s and 1960s, the new math was a curricular answer to Cold War fears of American intellectual inadequacy. In the age of Sputnik and increasingly sophisticated technological systems and machines, math class came to be viewed as a crucial component of the education of intelligent, virtuous citizens who would be able to compete on a global scale.
In this history, Christopher J. Phillips examines the rise and fall of the new math as a marker of the period's political and social ferment. Neither the new math curriculum designers nor its diverse legions of supporters concentrated on whether the new math would improve students' calculation ability. Rather, they felt the new math would train children to think in the right way, instilling in students a set of mental habits that might better prepare them to be citizens of modern society – a world of complex challenges, rapid technological change, and unforeseeable futures. While Phillips grounds his argument in shifting perceptions of intellectual discipline and the underlying nature of mathematical knowledge, he also touches on long-standing debates over the place and relevance of mathematics in liberal education. And in so doing, he explores the essence of what it means to be an intelligent American – by the numbers.
About the Author
Christopher J. Phillips is currently assistant professor and faculty fellow in New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study and has been appointed assistant professor in Carnegie Mellon University's Department of History.
Reviews
"'The New Math' sheds light on a time when changing political commitments were affecting what it meant to be prepared – mathematically – for citizenship in a modern, technology-laden society... The book is based on extensive research and is incredibly well documented... Likely to stand for a long time as the most thorough, authoritative account of this mid-twentieth-century phenomenon" – Jeremy Kilpatick, University of Georgia, Science
"Phillips reminds us in his fascinating book that even though mathematics is supposed to be apolitical, the teaching of it is anything but" – Alex Bellos, Nature
"Phillips unravels and unfolds complex interactions between political issues, school practices, power structures, struggles about learning, curriculum, and the nature of mathematics and their significance for the rise and fall of the new math. He conceives of the new math as a site where – and a lens through which – the changing politics of midcentury America are instantiated and made visible... Phillips's book is very well documented, well argued, and well written. It is a scholarly piece of research, drawing extensively on archival sources, and it will remain a standard reference for future research into the phenomenon of the new math" – Tinne Hoff Kjeldsen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Isis
"Noted... Phillips examines how new forms of teaching and mathematics in the 1950s and '60s [were] a reaction to Cold War tensions" – Jeremy Mikula, Chicago Tribune, Printers Row
