Algebra (Q5894743)

This is a textbook for students. It nicely collects and presents the basic items which everyone who is interested in the subject should certainly know. The book does by no means contain as much material as is in the monographs by van den Waerden, Lang, or, to mention a more recent one, Lorenz; in fact, its content is pretty standard. However, what most likely will make it popular with the students is the way in which the material is represented. Each chapter begins with an introduction describing what the new notions are good for and where they come from historically. Each section is followed by exercises which often test the reader's understanding in a sort of provocative way, in asmuch as they are put into questions as they could come up in the audience of a class on algebra. Hints which help to solve the exercises are given at the end of the book. The book does not intend to already lead up from algebra to number theory or to non-commutative topics; it is, however, written in the spirit of someone who seems to regard algebra as the background for algebraic geometry.