Algebra - Tapa dura

“The idea behind teaching is to expect students to learn why things are true, rather than have them memorize ways of solving a few problems, as most of our books have done. [This] same philosophy lies behind the current text by Gelfand and Shen. There are specific ‘practical’ problems but there is much more development of the ideas ... [The authors] have shown how to write a serious yet lively look at algebra.”   —The American Mathematics Monthly “Were ‘Algebra’ to be used solely for supplementary reading, it could be wholeheartedly recommended to any high school student of any teacher ... In fact, given the long tradition of mistreating algebra as a disjointed collection of techniques in the schools, there should be some urgency in making this book compulsory reading for anyone interested in learning mathematics.”   —The Mathematical Intelligencer

This elementary text aims to present algebra in a clear and simple form that should engage the interest of school and college students. Gelfand is the author of Functions and Graphs and Methods and Coordinates.