Multivariable Mathematics: Linear Algebra, Calculus, Differential Equations

I've seen the editions of 1968 and 1972, and it looks to me as if the book has gotten worse with time. The 1968 version, which one reviewer claimed Spivak praised, was more of a Mathematics book than the one from 1972. This one looks more mainstream; it looks like many other books, while the latter was more advanced, and had _more_ illustrations (to be honest, I haven't counted...) Less epsilon-deltas. On the other hand, numerics crept in the 1972 edition. How is this possible? Sales pressure, I guess...Calculus book have gone down that road too. Let's hope someone clarifies whether this last edition is really worth getting.

the book got to me almost on time and was in very good condition.

For those with sufficient preparation (say, a good BC Calculus course and an enjoyment of mathematics), this text offers a very fine presentation of multivariable calculus. Certainly, some of the material is challenging and some of the exercises require insight, but after finishing this book, or substantial portions of it, you will have a coherent view of multivariable calculus, as well as some appreciation of significant, but elementary, applications of linear algebra. I particularly recommend this text to those who have learned multivariable calculus in one of the "fat" three semester calculus texts, and feel that, although they could solve all the problems, they don't really have any sense of what the subject is all about. This text has a distinguished history: it is the latest incarnation of a vector calculus text (Calculus of Vector Functions) first published in 1962 by Crowell and Williamson. Spivak described that text (and I hope Dover someday reissues the third edition) as "one of the first, and still one of the nicest, treatments of advanced calculus using linear algebra."