Thomas Hawkins won the 2001 Whiteman Prize, an AMS prize that honors notable exposition in the history of mathematics. The citation for the prize calls Hawkins "an outstanding historian of mathematics whose current research and numerous publications display the highest standards of mathematical and historical sophistication." The citation also mentions a number of Hawkins' works, including his book, The Emergence of the Theory of Lie Groups: An Essay in the History of Mathematics 1869-1926. "Hawkins' work has truly transformed our understanding of how modern mathematics has evolved," the citation concludes.

Written by an expert in the field with forty years of research on the subject

Presented in three parts for optimal accessibility

Contains a detailed table of contents to guide readers to the works of greatest interest to them

1. A Berlin Education.- 2. Professor at the Zurich Polytechnic.- 3. Berlin Professor.- 4. The Paradigm.- 5. Further Development of the Paradigm.- 6. The Problem of Pfaff.- 7. The Cayley-Hermite Problem and Matrix Algebra.- 8. Arithmetical Investigations: Linear Algebra.- 9. Arithmetical Investigations: Groups.- 10. Abelian Functions.- 11. Frobenius' Generalized Theory of Theta Functions.- 12. The Group Determinant Problem.- 13. Group Characters and Representations.- 14. Alternate Routes to Representation Theory.- 15. Characters and Representations after 1897.- 16. Loose Ends.- 17. Nonnegative Matrices.- 18. The Mathematics of Frobenius in Retrospect.- References.- Index.