Anne Mahoney has an interesting new review up of Reviel Netz, The Transformation of Mathematics in the Early Mediterranean World: From Problems to Equations (CUP 2004).
…within the tool-kit of available techniques, classical Greek mathematicians, in general, make a point of choosing a different method from the last person to work on the problem, while late antique and Arab mathematicians, on the whole, look for the general, over-arching principles behind the problem.
