Review by Choice Review
Once lamentably neglected in the curriculum, combinatorics has became a popular subject with the advent of the computer age. Thus, not surprisingly, one finds many combinatorics books with an algorithmic bias. The emphasis in the present volume, on the other hand, is on structural combinatorics, focusing particularly on designs, graphs, and codes. This focus helps the authors convincingly demonstrate the unity of combinatorics, refuting the prejudice that the subject is just a grab bag of tricks. (For a unified view from a rather different perspective, see Richard P. Stanley's Enumerative Combinatorics, 1986). Unlike many branches of mathematics, combinatorics is rife with results that are at once beautiful, deep, and accessible. For example, the authors give their own simplified proof of Van der Waerden's conjecture on permanents, an open problem for 53 years until its solution in 1979. Wide coverage makes A Course in Combinatorics a basic reference; superb exposition makes it a viable, if demanding, textbook; large type, wide margins, and opaque paper make it a pleasure to the eye. Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduate through faculty.
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
