[throwawaybbqed]

What you are describing seems exactly like the text for first year math in school. Check out Spivak. I remember loling that it starts out explaining what is a number and why addition works the way it does. Heh .. I still lol a bit at that but if that is your cup of tea ..

My personal philosophy is to develop my mathematical intuition. I like applied problems. I really liked my high school math text: https://www.amazon.ca/Calculus-First-Course-James-Stewart/dp...

You can get old versions of these btw ... basic math has been the same since Newton :-p I also highly recommend the MIT course of Gilbert Strang on linear algebra.