> best way to truly understand and enjoy calculus was to learn it as it was historically developed
In fact, I'd argue it's the best way to understand almost anything, especially in math. Many topics I found somewhat confusing at school or university or whatever got really simple once I learned about their history. Little by little I come to feel that most of great inventions or discoveries made by people we regard as geniuses are often brilliant at how clear, beautiful and somewhat unexpected the solution was, but it's actually very rarely complicated and usually seems like the most natural thing in the world, when told about how Fourier/Laplace/Leibniz/etc discovered it, and not hidden behind standard school math curriculum.
That's a part of why I love 3Blue1Brown videos so much, and why I love Morris Kline books. And it always makes me kind of sad feeling how much time I wasted trying to come to terms with something that always was just unnatural explanation.
Morris Kline's book "Calculus: An Intuitive and Practical Approach" is still in print. I prefer the paper version because the Kindle version has many formatting problems.
In fact, I'd argue it's the best way to understand almost anything, especially in math. Many topics I found somewhat confusing at school or university or whatever got really simple once I learned about their history. Little by little I come to feel that most of great inventions or discoveries made by people we regard as geniuses are often brilliant at how clear, beautiful and somewhat unexpected the solution was, but it's actually very rarely complicated and usually seems like the most natural thing in the world, when told about how Fourier/Laplace/Leibniz/etc discovered it, and not hidden behind standard school math curriculum.
That's a part of why I love 3Blue1Brown videos so much, and why I love Morris Kline books. And it always makes me kind of sad feeling how much time I wasted trying to come to terms with something that always was just unnatural explanation.