The launch of a new book series is always a challenging event — not only for the
Editorial Board and the Publisher, but also, and more particularly, for the first
author. Both the Editorial Board and the Publisher are delighted that the first
author in this series is well able to meet the challenge. Professor Freudenthal
needs no introduction to anyone in the Mathematics Education field and it is
particularly fitting that his book should be the first in this new series because it
was in 1968 that he, and Reidel, produced the first issue of the journal Educational
Studies in Mathematics. Breaking fresh ground is therefore nothing new
to Professor Freudenthal and this book illustrates well his pleasure at such a
task. To be strictly correct the ‘ground’ which he has broken here is not new,
but as with Mathematics as an Educational Task and Weeding and Sowing,
it is rather the novelty of the manner in which he has carried out his analysis
which provides us with so many fresh perspectives. It is our intention that this
new book series should provide those who work in the emerging discipline of
mathematics education with an essential resource, and at a time of considerable
concern about the whole mathematics curriculum this book represents just such
resource