This popular student textbook has been revised and updated in order to provide clear explanations of the subject matter, permitting more classroom time to be spent in problem solving, applications or explanations of the most difficult points. The text begins with a review of algebra and the closing chapters cover Stoke's theorem and second-order differential equations. The text contains many examples and exercises.
Howard Anton obtained his B.A. from Lehigh University, his M.A. from the University of Illinois, and his Ph.D. from the Polytechnic University of Brooklyn, all in mathematics. In the early 1960's he worked for Burroughs Corporation and Avco Corporation at Cape Canaveral, Florida, where he was involved with the manned space program. In 1968 he joined the Mathematics Department at Drexel University, where he taught full time until 1983. Since that time he has been an adjunct professor at Drexel and has devoted the majority of his time to textbook writing and activities for mathematical associations. Dr. Anton was president of the EPADEL Section of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), Served on the board of Governors of that organization, and guided the creation of the Student Chapters of the MAA. He has published numerous research papers in functional analysis, approximation theory, and topology, as well as pedagogical papers. He is best known for his textbooks in mathematics, which are among the most widely used in the world. There are currently more than one hundred versions of his books, including translations into Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Italian, Indonesian, French, Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, and German. For relaxation, Dr. Anton enjoys traveling and photography.
A thorough and comprehensive introduction to calculus (differential, integral, and multivariate), suitable for 3 semesters at the college freshman/sophomore level. There are plenty of end-of-chapter homework problems, with answers to odd problems in the back, so it can be used not only for a course text, but also for individual study.
The discussion is clear and logical, and fairly rigorous.
The two-color printing is less flashy than many modern books. But the main disadvantage of an edition this old (1980) compared to a more modern text is that it makes no mention of the graphing calculators or symbolic math programs that all college students have access to.
I have the 2nd edition. I do not find Anton's books very good. When I was taking calculus I may have looked at the examples in the book, but never found myself doing any of the problems for extra practice. Now that I'm done with calculus I still feel no desire to use this book for reference or to brush up on things. This is generally the last book I'll consult if I'm looking for an answer to a problem. It's an average to less than average book.
One of the pleasures of reading older edition textbooks is enjoying excellent matte paper, which is easier to use under fluorescent lighting or near the end of a long day of reading. For those students or instructors with colour blindness or vision perception issues, the minimal reliance on colour in the book means these readers can access all the content of the text.