Book Description

"Lang's Algebra changed the way graduate algebra is taught, retaining classical topics but introducing language and ways of thinking from category theory and homological algebra. It has affected all subsequent graduate-level algebra books." NOTICES OF THE AMS "The author has an impressive knack for presenting the important and interesting ideas of algebra in just the right way, and he never gets bogged down in the dry formalism which pervades some parts of algebra." MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS This book is intended as a basic text for a one-year course in algebra at the graduate level, or as a useful reference for mathematicians and professionals who use higher-level algebra. It successfully addresses the basic concepts of algebra. For the revised third edition, the author has added exercises and made numerous corrections to the text.

(From amazon.com)

Serge Lang (May 19, 1927–September 12, 2005) was a French-born American mathematician. He was known for his work in number theory and for his mathematics textbooks, including the influential Algebra. He was a member of the Bourbaki group.

He was born in Paris in 1927, and moved with his family to California as a teenager. He graduated from CalTech in 1946, and received a doctorate from Princeton University in 1951. He had positions at the University of Chicago and Columbia University (from 1955, leaving 1971 in a dispute). At the time of his death he was professor emeritus of mathematics at Yale University.

(From wikipedia.org)