Product Description

This book is a well-informed and detailed analysis of the problems and development of algebraic topology, from Poincaré and Brouwer to Serre, Adams, and Thom. The author has examined each significant paper along this route and describes the steps and strategy of its proofs and its relation to other work. Previously, the history of the many technical developments of 20th-century mathematics had seemed to present insuperable obstacles to scholarship. This book demonstrates in the case of topology how these obstacles can be overcome, with enlightening results.... Within its chosen boundaries the coverage of this book is superb. Read it!

—MathSciNet

Customer Reviews (1)

More than a mere "history".
This book painstakingly describes and explains algebraic topology in the chronological order of its development. I quite agree with Glen Bredon's remark in his "Geometry and Topology" that goes like "this is more than a history and should be in the bookshelf of every student of topology"(not word-for-word, as the citation is done offhand). ... Read more