Basic Commutative Algebra

Originally published in 1985, this classic textbook is an English translation of Einführung in die kommutative Algebra und algebraische Geometrie. As part of the Modern Birkhäuser Classics series, the publisher is proud to make Introduction to Commutative Algebra and Algebraic Geometry available to a wider audience.

This second volume of our treatise on commutative algebra deals largely with three basic topics, which go beyond the more or less classical material of volume I and are on the whole of a more advanced nature and a more recent vintage. These topics are: (a) valuation theory; (b) theory of polynomial and power series rings (including generalizations to graded rings and modules); © local algebra. Because most of these topics have either their source or their best motivation in algebraic geom­ etry, the algebro-geometric connections and applications of the purely algebraic material are constantly stressed and abundantly scattered through­ out the exposition.

This book stems from lectures on commutative algebra for 4th-year university students at two French universities (Paris and Rennes). At that level, students have already followed a basic course in linear algebra and are essentially fluent with the language of vector spaces over fields. The topics introduced include arithmetic of rings, modules, especially principal ideal rings and the classification of modules over such rings, Galois theory, as well as an introduction to more advanced topics such as homological algebra, tensor products, and algebraic concepts involved in algebraic geometry.

Various types of approximation theorems are frequently used in general commutative algebra, and they have been found to be useful tools in valuation theory, the theory of Abelian lattice ordered groups, multiplicative ideal theory, etc.
Part 1 of this volume is devoted to the investigation of approximation theorems from a classical point of view. The chapters of this part deal with fields and rings, partly ordered groups, and with multirings and d-groups.