Contents

Scope

In the nLab we appear to currently be interested mainly in the development of ideas of category theory, topology, higher category theory, sheaf theory, homological algebra, foundations of mathematics and the general concept of space, as well as interactions between physics, mathematics and philosophy. Hence we will concentrate here on references with similar emphasis and list only a few works for the general history of mathematics (wikipedia has a nice reference list there).

Spaces, categories, topology, sheaves, topoi, cohomology, …

• Mathieu Bélanger. Grothendieck et les topos : rupture et continuité dans les modes d’analyse du concept d’espace topologique, thesis, Université de Montréal 2010 pdf
• Pierre Cartier, A mad day’s work: from Grothendieck to Connes and Kontsevich The evolution of concepts of space and symmetry, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 38 (2001), 389-408, pdf
• Ralf Krömer, Tool and object: A history and philosophy of category theory, Birkhäuser 2007
• John Bell, The development of categorical logic (pdf)

General history of mathematics

• C. B. Boyer, A history of mathematics, 2nd ed. rev. by Uta C. Merzbach. New York: Wiley, 1989
• Felix Klein, The development of mathematics in 19th century

Wiki, collection and encyclopaedia articles

• The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive: html
• Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy online, contents
• wikipedia history of mathematics

Researchers and institutes for history of mathematics

• hsm at Jussieu

$n$Lab entries with historical information

• history of cohomology with local coefficients
• historical notes on characteristic classes
• geometry of 19th century, Erlangen program
• Čech methods
• see also philosophy
• lots of person entries for most influential mathematicians in history, e.g. Alexander Grothendieck, Jacob Lurie, Maxim Kontsevich, Saunders MacLane, Bourbaki, Alfred Tarski etc.