Nicolas Bourbaki, pseudonym chosen by eight or nine young mathematicians inFrance in the mid 1930s to represent the essence of a “contemporary mathematician.” Thesurname, selected in jest, was that of a French general who fought in theFranco-German War (1870–71). The mathematicians who collectively wrote under the Bourbaki pseudonym at one time studied at the École Normale Supérieure inParis and were admirers of the German mathematicianDavid Hilbert. The founders included the Frenchmen Claude Chevalley,André Weil,Henri Cartan, andJean Dieudonné; afterWorld War II they were joined by the Polish American Samuel Eilenberg. Members agreed to retire from the group at age 50, but the group’s ranks were replenished with new recruits.

The group’s purpose was originally to write a rigorous textbook inanalysis, but it grew to include presentations of many branches ofalgebra and analysis, includingtopology, from anaxiomatic point of view. The Bourbaki writings commenced in 1939 with the first volume of theirÉléments de mathématique (“Elements of Mathematics”). The still-incomplete series of more than 30 monographs soon became a standard reference on the fundamental aspects of modernmathematics. The various historical notes included at the ends of chapters were published as a collection in 1960 inEléments d’histoire des mathématiques (“History of the Elements of Mathematics”).