TITLE: Mathematics textbooks with history and/or motivation?
QUESTION [35 upvotes]: I've bought some books and I guess they're written in a way that presumes a previous background or assignment in some mathematics course - these books just spit the content directly in your face. This kind of book is not suited for me (for a first reading in the subject): I'm not in a maths course, and they wouldn't be even if I were in a maths course because I like to learn the content, It's history and why study it. I've found one book on this class and I'd like to mention it as an example: 

A book of abstract algebra, Charles Pinter;

The chapter titled Why abstract algebra? is very useful, it contains a light historical background and also some motivation for it. After this chapter the book starts to provide a normal introductory abstract algebra course.
I am looking specifically for books with this spirit, there are a lot of history books about specific fields of mathematics, for example:

A history of abstract algebra, Kleiner;
Number theory and its history, Oystein Ore.

They are nice books and they can provide some motivation for study, but my impression is that they are more a history book than a textbook that could be used in a undergraduate course of mathematics. You can suggest books in any mathematical subject you wish, but they have to attain to that criteria.

REPLY [3 votes]: I haven't read too much literature about mathematics, but I read one very good book, called Mathematics: from the birth of numbers by Jan Gullberg, which I found very interesting. It covers everything from numbers to partial differential equations, while assuming no significant understanding of the topics. It also includes a few pages of history of the subject at the beginning of each chapter.