Foundations of commutative rings and their modules (Q511300)

The book under review is intended to serve as a rather comprehensive textbook for a course in commutative algebra at the graduate level as well as a reference book for researchers. It covers all the standard materials in a commutative algebra course; but there is more to learn: probably the main point that makes the book valuable for students and researchers is the smooth and coherent presentation of topics that have rarely been touched in similar books at this level (e.g., Gorenstein homological algebra and finitistic homological dimensions). The main advantage of the book under review in compare to similar books is the comprehension and detailed arguments that would be of great benefit to the beginners or experts in other fields. The first five chapters cover almost all the materials that are usually presented in a typical ``standard''' book in the subject. The first chapter, ``Basic Theory of Rings and Modules'', presents the rudiments of module theory. It also contains the basic theory of Krull dimension of commutative rings. The second chapter contains the basic ``categorical algebra'', including rudiments of category theory and its applications to study special classes of module (e.g., projectives, injectives and flat modules) as well as rings with chain conditions and their modules. The third chapter brings homological algebra into the picture. It contains the standard theory of derived functors with a special attention to the applications of the homological theory of rings and their modules. Classical homological invariants of rings and those of modules are discussed thoroughly as well as the (small) finitistic dimensions of rings; the later is not usually discussed in the books at this level. Using the gadgets provided in the previous chapters, the authors discuss in the forth chapter some important classes of noetherian rings, including regular local rings and Gorenstein rings. Several classical theorems of the subject are presented, e.g., the Auslander-Buchsbaum formula and characterizations of regular local rings. In Chapter 5, the authors present the general theory of integral dependence and valuation theory. These five chapters create a solid foundation for the rest of the book. In fact, while the potential reader who is new to the subject should read these chapters more or less in order, the rest of the book (the next six chapters) could be read almost independently. In Chapters 6--9 miscellaneous topics, such as multiplicative ideal theory over integral domains, structural theory of Milnor squares and coherent rings with finite global dimension are discussed. Next, the authors present in Chapter 10 the first steps in what one can call ``classical \(K\)-theory''; i.e., the theory of Grothendieck groups (of rings). It is also noteworthy that the venerable ``Serre Problem'' and its solution is presented in this chapter. The final chapter, ``Relative Homological Algebra'', deals with a relative version of the ``classical'' (or ``absolute'') homological algebra. Probably this chapter could better be titled ``Gorenstein Homological Algebra'' as its aim is not to present the general theory of covers and envelopes, whereas it focuses on the study of some homological dimensions which are defined \textit{relative} to Gorrenstein projective/injective modules. All the chapters and some of the sections begin with a synopsis of what would follow. But in the reviewer's opinion, these notes could have been written more sophisticated and informative. Each section of the book also ends with a list of exercises. Some of these exercises are used in the main body of the book, but they are not hard problems and they help the reader to be more active during his/her reading. In brief, the book under review could well be listed among recommended literature for students and researchers from other fields.