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The book by Mashaal and a book by Aczel (which I enjoyed) were reviewed by Michael Atiyah (1966 Fields Medalist): "Bourbaki, A Secret Society of Mathematicians" (Maurice Mashaal) and "The Artist and the Mathematician" (Amir Aczel) - Notices of the American Mathematical Society, v. 54, no. 9, October, 2007 - https://www.ams.org/notices/200709/tx070901150p.pdf

There have been numerous articles about Bourbaki, including some by former Bourbaki members:

"The Work of Bourbaki During the Last Thirty Years" - Jean Dieudonne - Notices of the American Mathematical Society, v. 29, no. 7, November, 1982 - https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/198211/198211FullIssue....

"Twenty-Five Years with Nicolas Bourbaki, 1949–1973" - Armand Borel - Notices of the American Mathematical Society, v. 45, no. 3, March, 1998 - https://www.ams.org//journals/notices/199803/borel.pdf

Edit: fixed typo

kzz102 · 2h ago

It's interesting that while Bourbaki had a large influence on modern mathematics, very few people read their books (at least among the people I know). In a sense, their project of producing a definitive exposition for a large part of mathematics has failed. I wonder whether it's because different branches of mathematics have their unique personalities, and therefore the attempt to provide a unified point of view are bound to fail.

madcaptenor · 2h ago

Also mathematicians tend to not read "the classics" of the field. Do the people you know read other math books from the same time period?

kzz102 · 22m ago

I was applying a unfair standard to them of course. Every field has a few classics that last a long time, but most old books are not read. But I think Bourbaki maybe had grand ambitions that were eventually unrealized. My theory is that the presentation of mathematics is not based on unifying principles, but rather on the collective taste of mathematicians. So what end up being the most popular books is based on how the collective taste evolve.

throwaway81523 · 1h ago

Yes, Whitaker & Watson (analysis), Hardy and Wright (number theory), Dieudonne (analysis and he was literally a Bourbaki member), heck, Euclid's Elements; Gauss Disquisitiones, etc. Bourbaki is more of a monument. Writing it was necessary, but for readers it suffices to know that it is there ;).

Davidzheng · 1h ago

while it's certainly not read by most mathematicians, Bourbaki (especially set theory & general topology) are still quite often read by mathematicians in training I believe.

throwaway81523 · 1h ago

The set theory book is, at best, very outdated. No idea about topology.

euiq · 41m ago

General Topology is valuable, especially for the filter perspective; so are some of the Algebra volumes.

ysofunny · 1h ago

they provided a unified point of view by explaining it all in terms of sets

ultimately they failed because they wrote such that it didn't matter if other people understood. it's a style that is only intelligible if you already know (from some other experience) what they are describing.

kirubakaran · 2h ago

We had our own: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=nickb

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

throwaway81523 · 1h ago

Book is from 2006, title should note this. Publication page: https://bookstore.ams.org/bourbaki

TZubiri · 33m ago

The link seems broken, points to books.google.com for me

tzury · 2h ago

this is the link I posted. not sure why it got modified

https://books.google.ae/books?id=-CXn6y_1nJ8C&pg=PA18&redir_...

Zambyte · 3h ago

If you want a very deep rabbit hole to go down, look into the connections between the Bourbaki group and Twenty One Pilots lore :)

futura_heavy · 2h ago

He goes by Nico, fwiw.

itsthecourier · 3h ago

https://www.google.com.do/books/edition/Bourbaki/-CXn6y_1nJ8...

this one?

tzury · 2h ago

https://books.google.ae/books?id=-CXn6y_1nJ8C&pg=PA18&redir_...

yes, this is the original link I submitted. not sure why it was modified.

fritzo · 2h ago

"secret society" -> "anonymous publishing group"

Guthur · 2h ago

Potato -> Po Ta To

suspended_state · 26m ago

https://copilot.microsoft.com/shares/3E6yBbwom9rEqqMnE5m75

siliconunit · 2h ago

imagine having to rigorously prove that blood is really essential for the survival of a human being before every surgery, thanks Bourbaki. /s

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Bourbaki – A Secret Society of Mathematicians

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