Menninger compares number words from several languages. Included is also finger counting and the abacus. This is a great book to learn about the development of numbers.

The authors present mathematics in a historical context. The book presents a broad survey of mathematics from the ancient beginnings to Euler. The topics include Babylonian and Egyptian mathematics, India, China, Islamic world, Latin West, and Maya America.

Carl B. Boyer, Uta C. Merzbach, A History of Mathematics, Wiley; 2 edition, 1991.

From the Publisher: The material is arranged chronologically beginning with archaic origins and covers Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Chinese, Indian, Arabic and European contributions done to the nineteenth century and present day. There are revised references and bibliographies and revised and expanded chapters on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Lucas N. H. Bunt, Phillip S. Jones, Jack D. Bedient, The Historical Roots of Elementary Mathematics, Dover Publications, 1988.

From the editorial reviews: Exciting, hands-on approach to understanding fundamental underpinnings of modern arithmetic, algebra, geometry and number systems, by examining their origins in early Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek sources. Students can do division like the ancient Egyptians, solve quadratic equations like the Babylonians and more.

Contents: Number Systems and the Invention of Positional Notation, Egyptian Arithmetic, Babylonian Algebra, Greek Trigonometry: The Introduction of Inequalities and the Measurement of Area, Navigation, Cartography, The Invention of Logarithms, The Algebraization of Geometry, The Infitesimal Calculus, The Calculus and Calculation, Differential Geometry, Models of the Universe, Twentieth-Century Mathematics

From the Back Cover: In this standard work, Dr. Ball treats hundreds of figures and schools that have been instrumental in the development of the mathematics from the Egyptians and Phoenicians to such giants of the 19th century as Grassmann, Hermite, Galois, Lie, Riemann and many others who established modern mathematics as we know it today.

From the Back Cover: For nearly a century, this sparkling classic has provided stimulating hours of entertainment to the mathematically inclined. The problems posed here often involve fundamental mathematical methods and notions, but their chief appeal is their capacity to tease and delight.

Contents: Numbers, Babylonian Mathematics, The sources; their Decipherment and Evaluation, Egyptian Mathematics and Astronomy, Babylonian Astronomy, Origin and Transmission of Hellenistic Science, The Ptolemaic System, On Greek Mathematics, The Zodiacal and Planetary Signs, Chronological Table, Index.

The author observed that two Old Babylonian tablets from Mari had clear Egyptian parallels. In this book Joran Friberg presents the results of his research and presents arguments that support the existence of links between Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics.

Ubiratan D'Ambrosio, H. Selin (Editor), Mathematics Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Mathematics, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001.

From the editorial reviews: Mathematics Across Cultures: A History of Non-Western Mathematics consists of essays dealing with the mathematical knowledge and beliefs of cultures outside the United States and Europe. In addition to articles surveying Islamic, Chinese, Native American, Aboriginal Australian, Inca, Egyptian, and African mathematics, among others, the book includes essays on Rationality, Logic and Mathematics, and the transfer of knowledge from East to West. The essays address the connections between science and culture and relate the mathematical practices to the cultures which produced them.

From the reviews: The book is, in spite of the author's more modest claims, an introductory survey of main developments in those disciplines which were particularly important in Medieval Islamic mathematics.
The book will hence not only be an excellent textbook for the teaching of the history of mathematics but also for the liberal art aspect of mathematics teaching in general. - Jens Høyrup, Mathematical Reviews

From the editorial reviews: The book is made up of two mutually explanatory parts, the first devoted to the general, historical and cultural background, and the second to the development of each subdiscipline that together comprise Chinese mathematics. This makes the book uniquely accessible, both as a topical reference work, and also as an overview that can be read and reread at many levels of sophistication by both sinologists and mathematicians alike.

From the Back Cover: One of the first books to show Westerners the nature of Japanese mathematics, this survey highlights the leading features in the development of of the wasan, the Japanese system of mathematics.
The text traces the development of wasan from the earliest period to the introduction of Western Mathematics.

Shen Kangshen, John N. Crossley, Anthony W. -C. Lun, The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art : Companion and Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2000.

The Nine Chapters was the standard mathematics textbook in China for about two thousand years. This volume contains an English translation of the Nine Chapters, together with the commentary of Liu Hui (third century). The translators provide useful comments on the text and relate it to the mathematical texts in other countries.

African Fractals : Modern Computing and Indigenous Design by Ron Eglash , Rutgers University Press (1999), ISBN 0-8135-2614-0

Ron Eglash investigates fractals in African culture. Fractals are characterized by the repetition of similar patterns at ever-diminishing scales. This repetition, as documented by Ron Eglash, can be often seen in architecture, arts and crafts of Africa.

FROM THE PUBLISHER: In this carefully researched study, the author examines Egyptian mathematics, demonstrating that although operations were limited in number, they were remarkably adaptable to a great many applications-solution of problems in direct and inverse proportion, linear equations of the first degree, and arithmetical and geometrical progressions.

FROM THE PUBLISHER: This fascinating study of mathematical thinking among sub-Saharan African peoples covers counting in words and in gestures; measuring time, distance, weight, and other quantities; number systems; patterns in music, poetry, art, and architecture; number magic and taboos, and much more. African games such as mankala and elaborate versions of Tic-Tac-Toe show how complex this thinking can be. An invaluable resource for those interested in African cultures and multiculturalism, this third edition includes an introduction covering two decades of new research in the ethnomathematics of Africa.

Editorial Reviews: There is no question that native cultures in the New World exhibit many forms of mathematical development. This Native American mathematics can best be described by considering the nature of the concepts found in a variety of individual New World cultures. Unlike modern mathematics in which numbers and concepts are expressed in a universal mathematical notation, the numbers and concepts found in native cultures occur and are expressed in many distinctive ways. Native American Mathematics, edited by Michael P. Closs, is the first book to focus on mathematical development indigenous to the New World.

The book is based too a large extent on fieldwork in communities near Sucre, south-central Bolivia. This is a study of the origin, meaning, and significance of numbers. For example in Quechua there is no symbol for zero. It was represented by not making a knot on a string.