An Introduction to Homological Algebra [Import] [Hardcover]

D.G. Northcott (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 282 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; First Edition edition (1960)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0000CKS0U
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,551,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars still one of the best, November 2, 2007

By 

wy-reader (USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: An introduction to homological algebra (Hardcover)

This book was first published in 1960. It is one of the first few to appear that treated a very abstract subject matter but whose applications are numerous (number thepory, algebraic geometry, topology, group theory, ring theory, etc.). It took a couple of decades to see the full potential of homological algebra.

Author is a very good writer; theorems are clearly stated and most of them proved. The author has another text called A First Course of Homological Algebra, which I think is a bit better and a bit more modern.

Nonetheless, this is a valuable text, even today, after more than 40 years of its first appearance.

0 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Avoid this book by this author like the plague!, January 20, 2007

By 

R. Bagula "Roger L. Bagula" (Lakeside, Ca United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An introduction to homological algebra (Hardcover)

This book may be one of the worst written texts I've seen

on a very difficult abstraction of algebra and topology.

I don't have a real desire to read it further

but I'm getting an idea of the subject

( not a lot of thanks to the way it was written).

I went online and read Mathworld definitions for some of the terms and that helped.

I don't know if there is any application to this besides maybe some number theory ones that are almost as abstract.

If you took a course where this was the text, I can only say,

I'm very sorry.

How Mathematics managed to get this far removed from reality is hard to say?

It is ironic that the son of Eli Cartan who is the creator of some of the most useful algebra/ group theory

should be the sponsor of this homological algebra.

With no problems and no examples there is no way to get context for a student , much less understanding.

Avoid books by this author like the plague!

He's still writing and may have improved some, but anyone who published this has to be really numb.

There really should be a zero stars for books like this one.