It was originally written in Russian by Isabella Bashmakova, and published by Nauka in 1972 under the title Диофант и диофантовы уравнения.
[6] In contrast, the thesis of Bashmakova's book is that Diophantus indeed had general methods, which can be inferred from the surviving record of his solutions to these problems.
The remaining four chapters trace the influence of Diophantus and his works through Hypatia and into 19th-century Europe, particularly concentrating on the development of the theory of elliptic curves and their group law.
[3] The German edition adds supplementary material including a report by Joseph H. Silverman on progress towards a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
[3] Reviewer Alan Osborne is also positive, writing that it is "well-crafted, ... offering considerable historical information while inviting the reader to explore a great deal of mathematics.