Schaum's Outline of Modern Abstract Algebra

Shortly after graduating from college with a math major, I realized that I needed some experience in modern or abstract algebra. For reasons that I no longer recall, I was able to obtain the major without taking a course in algebra. My undergraduate college offered two courses in abstract algebra, but rather than pay the full tuition, I asked the chair of the department if I could take some form of challenge exam for the credit. She agreed and gave me the complete set of take-home graded questions that she had given out the previous year. I then worked through the exercises and submitted them to her for feedback. I passed both courses. One of the primary reasons for my achievement was this book. From my perspective, the strongest point of the book is the extensive lead-in before group theory is introduced. The background review in the area of sets, relations, integers, rational, real and complex numbers was something I really needed. These chapters forced me to look at these things in ways that I had not done so in the past and prepared me to better think abstractly. After this solid introduction, I was able to proceed into the study of groups, rings, integral domains, ideals and fields on my own. By design, the books in the Schaum's series are better used as supplemental rather than core texts. I found this one to be the exception; it is stronger in the preliminaries than it is in presenting the core material of the title.

Excellent for a quick and rigorous grasping of basic concepts. A huge number of problems helps fix the theory and gain problem solving capability.

I think this book would be good by itself in picking up algebraic theories and methods. Each section is well explained and the sample problems take you through the process step-by-step.The only problem I have with the book is that not all the supplementary exercises (to test your understanding) have the answers. Some have an answer, some have a partial answer, some have a hint, and some have nothing. This is a little aggravating, but it does not take away from the book.

I am an undergrad student in Computer Science. The content in this book is terse and very cohesive. And its cohesiveness is what I like most. Each successive chapter is developed rigorously upon previous chapters. A lot of proofs of most important theorems have been supplemented. These proofs I have been reading in awe, are real eye-openers. Mathematics had never been this entertaining. I strongly recommend this book, especially if you don't know what Abstract Algebra is all about. I had no idea when I ordered...

I purchased this book as a supplement to my text for my Abstract Algebra course. I highly recommend any of the Schaum's Outlines whenever you want a clear and concise summary of ideas with valuable problems (both solved and unsolved). The solved problems in this book take you step by step through several key ideas without spoon feeding the entire subject.Here are some caveats though. In case you are trying to purchase this book for a junior high or high school algebra class, let me warn you, This is NOT the same thing! Pick up the Elementary Algebra outline instead. Trust me.Next, my class concentrated more on groups than this particular outline did. I found the Group Theory outline to be a useful "co-supplement" for my particular class. Since different teachers accentuate different things, I recommend talking to the teacher and asking what they would suggest.Finally, I think that this book would have been served by including a few geometric arguments for groups including isometry groups in 2D. The lack thereof does not truly detract from the book but I feel the extra clarification would have been helpful.