Product Description

KEY BENEFIT: The Bittinger Concepts and Applications Series brings proven pedagogy to a new generation of students, with updates throughout to help today’s students learn. Bittinger transitions students from skills-based math to the concepts-oriented math required for college courses, and supports students with quality applications and exercises to help them apply and retain their knowledge. New features such as Translating for Success and Visualizing for Success unlock the way students think, making math accessible to them.

Customer Reviews (3)

Intermediate Algebra pretty good
I wish it would explain a little better. Im glad they have dvds but danget I have to download something to use them.

Great service!
I'd like to thank you for your great customer service. I got the book in 3 days!
Best of luck to you!.
Sabrina

Good algebra book
Chapters are easy to understand. The exercises are easy to understand as well. Recommend getting the students solutions manual to help you along further. ... Read more

Product Description
"Lang's Algebra changed the way graduate algebra is taught, retaining classical topics but introducing language and ways of thinking from category theory and homological algebra. It has affected all subsequent graduate-level algebra books." - NOTICES OF THE AMS"The author has an impressive knack for presenting the important and interesting ideas of algebra in just the "right" way, and he never gets bogged down in the dry formalism which pervades some parts of algebra."- MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS

This book is intended as a basic text for a one-year course in algebra at the graduate level, or as a useful reference for mathematicians and professionals who use higher-level algebra. It successfully addresses the basic concepts of algebra. For the revised third edition, the author has added exercises and made numerous corrections to the text. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (24)

Terrible first algebra book
After having it used as my undergraduate algebra text, I hated algebra for about 15 years. Absolutely NO motivation or "genetic" understanding of the material. If you DO know the subject already, the book has many of the slickest proofs, so a good book for the professional, terrible book for instruction. Oh, another thing: if you want to know how to actually go about computing some algebraic object (eg, Jordan canonical form, Smith normal form, etc), do NOT try to find the answer in this book.

Comprehensive book, great for reference.
This book covers a very wide variety of topics in algebra, and has lots of exercises. It is a great book for reference.

Indispensable reference, but not perfect
Lang's Algebra is a very broad reference in abstract algebra: most subfields are at least mentioned, and there is a wealth of detail on many important topics. Overall, Lang's writing is clear and his exposition makes sense. The sheer quantity of information contained in this book, however, forces Lang into a less-than-logical general organization. His index makes up for that to a large extent, and this book is probably best used as a reference. Of course, Algebra makes an excellent reference and complement to any survey course in abstract algebra, because of its clarity and comprehensiveness.

That said, there are a few caveats that I would like to mention. Lang's terminology is nonstandard (eg "entire ring" for what other authors call an "integral domain"), and these accumulated idiosyncrasies become increasingly irritating as one reads through the book. Second, don't expect many applications. I found this to be a problem in Galois theory in particular, where Lang's exposition is completely clear and easy to understand, but seemingly pointless. He neglects even the classical and fairly abstract applications, like the Galois theorem, and he leaves infinite-dimensional Galois theory as an exercise. Now, there are not many applications in general in this book, so be aware that the clarity of Lang's exposition comes at a certain cost (ie, Lang never gets bogged down in too many examples or minor points). Third, Lang occasionally uses notation that he never defines and that does not appear in the index.

In summary, this is a wonderful general reference for algebra, but not a substitute for more specialized or more elementary textbooks in specific subfields, especially Galois theory. The best way to take advantage of Lang's clear, abstract exposition is to make a real effort to come up with examples on your own and use Lang for the general case. I wouldn't rely only on Lang's exercises either: they don't cover as much as you might want them to, but the ones that Lang does include are challenging and important.

Not a goodseller
There was no tracking for my book. I didn't know what happened. It took over 2 and half weeks to get it. I sent email to ask them about my book situation and got no answer.

Best Algebra Book.
This is among the finest references for Algebra I have ever seen.Comprehensive is an understatement.The only point of contention may be the terse language used throughout the text which makes it hard for novices.Great text to have on your shelf! ... Read more