In Benjamin Wardhaugh’s book Poor Robin’s Prophecies: A Curious Almanac, and the Everyday Mathematics of Georgian Britain, the author explores the culture of almanacs and mathematics in eighteenth-century Britain. Wardhaugh obtained his DPhil from Hertford College, Oxford and his Bachelor’s from Trinity College at Cambridge. His research interests include the application of mathematics in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England, as well as mathematical theories of music. Several of Wardhaugh’s recent works include The Wealth of Numbers and Gunpowder and Geometry: The Remarkable Life of Charles Hutton. With his knowledge of history and mathematics, Wardhaugh is well-positioned to author a text such as Poor Robin’s Prophecies, with its specific focus on how everyday people interacted with mathematics in early modern Britain.
Instead of an introduction, the author leaps into Chapter One and succinctly states that the book will focus of everyday people and what math did, and conversely, did not do for them in this historical context. The reader is well-prepared to understand his intent of showing how math can get things right and wrong, yet also be considered fun. Within Chapter One, Poor Robin’s Almanac is introduced as a light-hearted, yet satirical almanac that reflects how math could be considered in a fun nature. Almanacs were structured in a different way from the Old Farmer’s Almanacs typically found today, as they often contained political satire, crash courses in mythology or geometry, and medical recipes. Poor Robin’s stance on math was presented through the lens of the poor in terms of their oppression and lack of power. Chapter Two sets the stage to better understand math and its impact to one’s life. Describing two key occurrences helps the author illustrate how math could be perceived as sometimes “getting it wrong” with the examples of the 1699 solar eclipse misinterpretation and the issues surrounding the joint-stock companies, such as the South Sea Company, which was a financial bubble that popped, causing economic disaster. This chapter dealt more with economics as an applied math and the associated reputation of math. As the author transitions to Chapter Three and explains who learned math and in what manner in the eighteenth century, the book’s strength as a reflection on everyday mathematics is apparent. The author depicted women’s lack of math education as an unfortunate byproduct of the period, but he did not discount that women learned math that would be useful in their daily lives. Examination of the relationship between women and math extends into Chapter Four as it delves into an explanation of women and their responsibility for household accounting, thus seeing mathematics in the context of usefulness. The practice of gauging, which was used for taxation, is introduced, along with surveying. Poor Robin even shifted content to share tables, thus showing math in more usable context. A weakness could be in the shift to the content of Chapter Five, which focused on the perceived beauty of math. It explores how math was viewed as therapeutic and healing, as scholars in the eighteenth century believed that math could cure or prevent mental illness. However, the author provides a visual explanation in terms of geometry texts with their diagrams, color inks and illustrative nature, which brings the beauty to life. Math in the setting of a beautiful mind may be more difficult to grasp, but as the author relates it to intellectual curiosity, it makes better sense. Chapter Six was perhaps the most difficult chapter to synthesize in terms of mathematics and the order of the world. With this chapter, it may be a leap for a more casual reader as they may not have grounding in the mindset of the period. However, when the author describes the resultant struggles with the shift from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, the reader could gain a better understanding of the fiscal impact in terms of leases, taxes, contracts, and farming. Order, as a legacy of the Renaissance-era Chain of Being, was paramount. Everyone in society supposedly knew their place, just as every aspect of the government, from the calendar to the national debt, depended on math to keep it in working order. The author’s transitions between chapters provides continuity and serves as an introduction to the following chapter. In Chapter Seven, the author discusses the mathematics of artillery, in which the author spends a significant amount of time writing about the interrelation between cannonballs, physics, and math as England was embroiled in ongoing conflicts. This chapter highlights the evolution of math from the everyday life aspect to a larger-scale impact, focusing on military and order. The text concludes with Chapter Eight, in which the author discusses everyday math in the context of the lottery and other games of chance. The author expresses that math can be played with, like a game of chance. Mathematics is shown at this point to be fun. Of note, this happened to coincide with the introduction of probability theory. Chapter Eight seems to serve a dual purpose as a chapter as well as an epilogue for the story of Poor Robin. In this last chapter, it also provided a retrospective view of almanacs. Readers may wonder why the author decided to consolidate this as a chapter instead of adding an epilogue. It explains Poor Robin’s Almanac and its unique place in history, as it was superseded by almanacs that only included facts and figures. Authors such as Charles Dickens decried the soul-crushing nature of Victorian mathematics, and looked upon Poor Robin’s Almanac, with its blend of humor and mathematical knowledge, with a degree of nostalgia.
I would recommend this book to those that have a keen interest in the intersection of history and mathematics as an everyday tool in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England. The author strategically uses his knowledge of Poor Robin’s Almanac as a backbone to understanding how the average person understood math. Poor Robin’s Prophecies made mathematics in early modern Britain generally relatable and readable to those that may consider themselves less knowledgeable in the field of mathematics. For readers who may have experienced struggles with math in their academic career, this book may prove to be slightly difficult to read, as one of the chapters gets deeper into the concepts of trigonometry. The contents of Chapter Eight may be of interest to those familiar with the works of Fermat, Pascal, their letters, and the games of chance referenced in The Unfinished Game and the interrelationship with probability theory and mathematics as fun. The author specializes in the history of math and based on his list of publications is a subject matter expert, but the book may appeal to a larger audience if he would have made this book more digestible by cutting back on some of the deeper and more intensive mathematical content. However, I was left with a better understanding of how ordinary people used math in eighteenth-century England despite my preconceived notions about my mathematical abilities. The book that Poor Robin’s Prophecies most resembles in the historiography of the Scientific Revolution is Sailing School, where the mathematics behind navigation received special attention. The interplay of complex math and practical concepts was just as prominent in Sailing School as it was in Poor Robin’s Prophecies.
