In his latest book, master mathematics expositor Ian Stewart delivers on his catchy title with succinct summaries of twenty-five of the most influential mathematicians of all time, from Archimedes, ca 250BCE, to modern day giant William Thurston, who died in 2012. By providing short descriptions of their most significant works, Stewart provides a concise overview of what has been hot in math at different times in the discipline's history. A great way for an outsider to get a sense of the huge historical arc of mathematical discoveries that has led to the mathematics-and the world-of today. I recommend it. (Keith Devlin, Stanford University, author of The Man of Numbers: Fibonacci?s Arithmetic Revolution and Finding Fibonacci: The Quest to Rediscover the Forgotten Mathematical Genius Who Changed the World)