We all know math is important: we live in the age of big data, our lives are increasingly governed by algorithms, and we're constantly faced with statistics about everything from politics to our health. But what might be less obvious is how math factors into your daily life, and what memorizing all of those formulae in school had to do with it. Traveling the world to visit societies that have developed without the use of math—and going back into history to learn how and why various disciplines of mathematics were invented—Stefan Buijsman shows how a better understanding of mathematics will give us a better understanding of the world as a whole.