Customer Reviews

Homological Algebra (PMS-19)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Yes, this is a landmark book and yes this book has served many a fine mathematician but, let's be honest here, this book is out dated. Since the creation of this book there have been both advances within the field and the core terminology has been agreed upon. Why read a text, especially as an introduction, whose notation and basic terminology is extinct? Yes, it is nice to go back and read the works of the masters, the pioneers and wrap yourself up in a nice warm blanket of original and new thought. Whereas, if your trying to learn the subject matter for your own benefit or for research reasons, then I would not recommend this text. For those of you who are new to the field, my suggestion is to stay far away from this text. Try L.R. Vermani's text or Rotmans text instead. For those of you who are not new to the field then I am sure you already own your own copy, so enjoy. Finally, a word about the 3-stars. Sure this text deserves 5 stars for being well written, for being a landmark text and for many other reasons but, this texts hay day has gone and went. It is time to give up the old and bring in the up to date and more relavent texts such as Weibel's. In general, save your time and your money.

As the title of the series suggests, this is another "landmark" in books of mathematics. In fact, this was the only book on homological algebra for a certain period of time. I don't think this is a fungus, but with other modern good textbooks available (Weibel, for example) I am not inclined to give it "five stars".

I believe this is volume #19 of the Princeton Math. Ser. entitled Homological Algebra. The authors are H. Cartan and S. Eilenberg. H. Cartan is one of E. Cartan's sons.