Multivariable Calculus: Concepts and Contexts

Rating:
Summary: Concepts and Contexts
Review: The text is written for the average student one who does not already know the subject, whose background is somewhat weak in spots, and who requires a significant motivation to study calculus.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Intro to Multivariable...
Review: This is one of the best introductory texts in multivariable calculus that I have seen in a long time. It was a required text and essentially, if you have this book, it is unnecessary to even go to class. All of the examples are clear and concise and combined with the excellent study guide, one can easily learn multivariable calculus from this book without even taking a course.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent textbook but ...
Review: This really is an excellent presentation of multivarible calculus! The "but..." in the review title relates to two facts:

1. I bought the book new for $45 only a few weeks ago through Amazon and
2. The book is actually the last six chapters of Stewart's larger "Calculus : Concepts and Contexts" (2nd edition, I think - the one going for around $139). So, if you're hell-bent on buying this book at the $100 plus price, you'd be better of just getting the full version. More bang for your buck!

Anyway, I have quite a few calculus texbooks at various levels of sophistication and this one is quickly stealing my heart. I'm finding that Stewart's manner of presentation and the chosen examples, problems, solutions, and graphics, are all well designed toward the end that students actually understand the beautiful "concepts and context" that form the soul of this magnificent subject. For what it's worth, I've found it fairly easy to take this book's material and plug it into Mathematica to play and poke and mess around in order to get an even more intimate and graphical feel for it (though no Mathematica notebooks are actually provided with this textbook). A solutions manual by Don Clagg is available here at Amazon (which I haven't recieved yet) and there's also available a LabCalc series of resources for various math programs such as Mathematica and Maple that are built specifically for this textbook.

OK - have fun, but don't fork out $133 or whatever it currently costs. I think maybe someone at Amazon or the publisher screwed up with the new pricing.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent and interesting
Review: This textbook is the best of its kind, in my opinion. Stewart presents difficult concepts in the clearest possible way. Fully-explained examples, excellent graphics, and interesting presentations. After each section, you are left feeling that you've learned an exciting new concept. I fully enjoyed the subject. I would have given it five stars, but I did have a little difficulty with the chapter on Power Series. Other than that, I thought the book was perfect.