"Donal O'Shea's beautifully written new book, The Poincaré Conjecture, begins with a quick tour of the history of ideas of geometry and topology that set the stage for Poincaré . . . O'Shea goes on to trace the history of modern geometry and the mathematical giants who founded it in the second half of the 19th century . . . No matter what their mathematical background, readers will find much to further stimulate their interest and will learn about both the history of mathematics and its most recent spectacular advances. The book should also be required reading for mathematicians, who will derive great pleasure from seeing their subject so well presented. It should serve as a model to inspire more good general writing by mathematicians, whose field has so much worth explaining."—John Morgan, American Scientist

"If you're already addicted to Martin Gardner's plain prose, gentle, reasonable voice, exhaustive research and relentless logic, you will want to add this book to your collection . . . While [he] has always called himself 'strictly a journalist,' he should really be honored as one of this country's greatest cultural treasures."—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post