No label defined (Q4514966)

An excellent book on algebraic topology, unfortunately written in German language which restricts considerably the number of its potential readers. The book's first edition, [1991; Zbl 0731.55001], has been revised thoroughly and new material, e.g. a chapter on characteristic classes, has been added. The author writes in compact style which appealed to the reviewer. This style demands from the reader to work along and to fill in steps himself, on the other hand it helps catching the motivating idea behind a definition or a proof rather than being drowned in technical details. One difficulty in teaching algebraic topology is that the necessary machinery makes the beginner lose contact to the motivating geometric ideas behind. The author meets this difficulty by the first two chapters on the fundamental group and covering spaces and on the topology of surfaces, both subjects which are close to intuition. The remaining chapters of the book treat the following topics: III. Homotopy groups; IV. Axiomatic homology and cohomology; V. Singular homology and cohomology; VI. Homotopy; VII. Complexes; VIII. Manifolds; IX. Bundles; X. Duality, Products; XI. Characteristic classes. The chapters do not only treat standard first course material but often give little outlooks, e.g. on simplicial objects (in Chapter V), on spectra (in chapter VI), on surgery, bordism, the theorem of Pontryagin-Thom (in chapter VIII). Together with historical or other motivating remarks, this makes the book a gain also for the advanced reader.