Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 12:57:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dev Sinha <dps@math.brown.edu>
Subject: Re: Stasheff question

I would like to take the opportunity to plug Allen Hatcher's book,
available for anyone to download for free at:
http://www.math.cornell.edu/~hatcher/

I have had a great time teaching from it.  The students found it
exceptionally readable, both in giving motivation and examples and in
clarity of detailed arguments ("Hatcher's clear style" was cited by them
on more than one occasion).  I like it philosophically, as it has a
healthy mix of the geometric and categorical viewpoints.  I also like the
main topics/ additional topics format - I stuck to the main topics so we
could do the Leray-Serre SS at the end of the year.

Addressing Jim's question, it has a few nice examples of Seifert-VanKampen
(with knot and link complements, for example).  It doesn't do as much with
Mayer-Vietoris, as at that point it is more concerned with the cellular
viewpoint - but the examples it does do are explicit.

-Dev

P.S. I have given this spiel before, so I know to add that: no, I am not
receiving a commission for this.

>
> Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 11:48:12 -0400 (EDT)
> From: James Stasheff <jds@math.unc.edu>
>
> Any recommendations for text(s) that show many examples
> of HOW to decompose a space into U \union V for
> either Seifert-VanKampen or Mayer-Vietoris??
>
> .oooO   Jim Stasheff            jds@math.unc.edu
> (UNC)   Math-UNC                (919)-962-9607
>  \ (    Chapel Hill NC          FAX:(919)-962-2568
>   \*)   27599-3250
>
>         http://www.math.unc.edu/Faculty/jds