Precalculus: A Prelude to Calculus

Sheldon Axler

This textbook focuses on topics needed for success in calculus. The book treats key concepts leisurely and in depth, even though the book is about half the size of the typical thousand-page tome that includes many unnecessary topics.

Written by a recipient of a Mathematical Association of America award in expository writing, this book is designed to be read by students. It contains the student solutions manual with complete worked-out solutions to all odd-numbered exercises, written by the author to ensure consistency and the same high-quality standards as the rest of the text.

As with the author's widely-adopted linear algebra textbook, this book features clear explanations of the main ideas. For example, area is presented from a perspective that will prepare students for integral calculus, and the book gives an unusually well-motivated introduction to e. Inverse functions are used as a unifying concept to define roots, logarithms, and the inverse trigonometric functions.

This book is available with the WileyPLUS online learning system, which provides online homework grading that gives students instant feedback while keeping records for instructors.

The preliminary edition of this book had extensive classroom testing before publication of the current edition. The book is available in hardcover, softcover, and (soon) binder ready and electronic versions.



Review Copies

Faculty who are potentially interested in using this book as a text can contact the author (precalculus@axler.net) to request a review copy.
The softcover version (ISBN: 978-0-470-18072-3) of this book can be purchased for $83.95 directly from Wiley.

The hardcover version (ISBN: 978-0-470-41674-7) of this book can be purchased for $96.95 directly from Wiley.


Excerpts from reviews of the author's linear algebra textbook

Altogether, the text is a didactic masterpiece.
Zentralblatt für Mathematik

a tour de force in the service of simplicity and clarity ... The most original linear algebra book to appear in years, it certainly belongs in every undergraduate library.
Choice

elegant and intuitive
American Mathematical Monthly

Clarity through examples is emphasized ... I congratulate the author and the publisher for a well-produced textbook on linear algebra.
Mathematical Reviews