Proof! (How the World Became Geometrical)

An eye-opening narrative of how geometric principles fundamentally shaped our world

One night in 1661, Nicolas Fouquet, a superintendent under Louis XIV, was arrested. His crime was peculiar—he had dared to construct a grand geometrical garden. In doing so, he violated an irrefutable hierarchy: geometry, in its perfection, was a testament to divine right, and so reserved for the sovereign. The elegant, symmetrical designs were more than mere ornament; they were proof of an incontestable certainty, and thus the authority to rule. But how did the French royalty fall in love with this peculiar landscape design? Wherefore Versailles?

In Proof!, the award-winning historian Amir Alexander argues that Euclidean geometry has been uniquely responsible for how our societies are structured. It has shaped how our cities are built and been used as a rationale to explain our political frameworks. Alexander tracks the rediscovery of Euclidean geometry in fifteenth-century Italy and recounts the French royalty’s centuries-long love affair with geometrical gardening, culminating with the gardens at Versailles, which served as a visual symbol of the monarchy’s consolidation of power during times of violence and upheaval. Proof! tells the monumental story of the geometries that were carved into our world, the beliefs they supported, and the ways they shape our lives to this day.