BOOK REVIEWS—ISIS, 97 : 4 (2006) 775 dex. Washington, D.C.: Mathematical Associa- tion of America, 2005. (Cloth.) Robert Lee Moore (1882–1974), teacher of mathematics at the University of Texas for nearly fifty years, is known among mathemati- cians for a distinctive approach to instruction, referred to as the Moore Method. Students are provided with a set of definitions and axioms and then expected to prove a sequence of theorems, without assistance from books or lectures. Inter- action among students is restricted to the class- room: a student claiming a proof presents it at the board, and other students are expected to challenge any gaps or missteps. The instructor designs the sequence of theorems, decides which students to call to the board, and provides the final judgment on proofs presented. Moore’s own practice featured carefully in- dividualized applications of praise, criticism, and patient waiting. He was also vigilant in se- lecting students for his courses and unsentimen- tal in culling those who failed to meet his stan- dards. This filtering process has led some critics to question claims made for Moore’s special teaching genius, arguing that any moderately competent teacher with conventional methods would have been effective with such an elite group of students. But the evidence of John Parker’s biography strongly suggests that Moore made mathematicians out of individuals who would not otherwise have taken this path. More- over, a large proportion of his fifty doctoral stu- dents became superlative mathematicians, pro- ducing significant research, garnering honors, and producing quantities of notable students in their turn. The book also provides testimony from Moore students who did not earn doctor- ates, in some cases even leaving mathematics, yet who have claimed an abiding influence from his teaching. Indeed, this biography owes its existence to vigorous efforts by Moore’s intellectual descen- dants, both mathematicians and nonmathemati- cians, to preserve his legacy. Acting primarily through the Educational Advancement Founda- tion of Austin, Texas, said descendants in recent years have promoted the growth of the Archives of American Mathematics (AAM) at the Uni- versity of Texas as a collection especially strong on the Moore school, organized annual confer- ences on Moore and his method, and commis- sioned this biography. Parker has mined the abundant resources of the AAM, quoting exten- sively from unpublished manuscripts and oral history interviews, as well as from earlier pub- lished work on Moore. The intention is to put Moore’s story before a wider audience, espe- cially instructors of mathematics from secondary school upward. The result is an entertaining nar- rative, sometimes verging on breezy, with many thought-provoking details. Any reader with ex- perience of college mathematics is likely to gain new perspectives. Parker covers Moore’s entire career, including his undergraduate mentoring by the cantanker- ous George Bruce Halsted at Texas, his graduate education at the University of Chicago under the tutelage of E. H. Moore and Oswald Veblen, and his teaching experiences at Northwestern and Penn prior to his return to Texas. Parker asserts with justice that he has depicted Moore “warts and all” (p. ix). Moore’s combative relations with others at the University of Texas are vividly described—notably the bitter fight over his forced retirement in the 1960s. His bigotry to- ward African Americans is made plain. Parker, a journalist by training, lacks back- ground in both mathematics and rigorous his- torical scholarship, and this contributes to defi- ciencies and missed opportunities. Source citations are sometimes misleading or incomplete. Assertions by oral history informants are unscru- tinized. Occasional attempts to inject technical de- tails regarding Moore’s mathematical specialty of set theoretic topology are stilted, relying on un- digested descriptions by others more expert. In general, this detracts little from the depiction of Moore’s pedagogical work, although there has been controversy, not much discussed by Parker, as to whether the Moore Method is of lesser ap- plicability beyond his particular subject matter. Parker also pays insufficient attention to a central issue, troubling even to some close to Moore: does reliance on the Moore Method risk produc- ing confident problem solvers who are ignorant of broad patches of mathematics? Moore’s career raises many questions concerning the relation- ships of various subfields within the growth of twentieth-century mathematics and the connec- tions between mathematics and the sciences, but Parker is ill euipped to comment. His discussion of Moore’s approach to teaching calculus fails to provide historical context on the special place this subject has come to hold in American education. Nonetheless, readers of Isis will find much to pon- der in this book. DAVID LINDSAY ROBERTS Sumathi Ramaswamy. The Lost Land of Lemu- ria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histo- ries. xv  334 pp., illus., figs., index. Berke-