Book excerpts:

Almost two decades after the appearance of most of the classical texts on the subject, this book's fresh introduction to Graph Theory offers a reassessment of what are the theory's main fields, methods and results today. Viewed as a branch of pure mathematics, the theory of finite graphs is developed as a coherent subject in its own right, with its own unifying questions and methods. The book thus seeks to complement, not replace, the existing more algorithmic treatments of the subject.

This book can be used at various different levels. It contains all the standard basic material to be taught in a first undergraduate course, complete with detailed proofs and numerous illustrations. To help with the planning of such a course, it includes precise information on the logical dependence of results, including forward referencing.

Intended Audience:

For a graduate course, the book offers proofs of several more advanced results, most of which thus appear in a book for the first time. These proofs are described with as much care and detail as their simpler counterparts, often with an informal discussion of their underlying ideas complementing their rigorous step-by-step account.

To the professional mathematician, finally, the book affords an overview of graph theory as it stands today: with its typical questions and methods, its classic results, and some of those developments that have made this subject such an exciting area in recent years.

Reviews:

SIAM Review

:| "The reader who is interested in applications or algorithms will be disappointed, for the author is very clear that this is a pure mathematics text."

:) " It would be an excellent choice as a textbook for a second course in graph theory for graduate students in mathematics."

Optima

:) "All in all, the book of R. Diestel is a smooth introduction to standard material and is particularly rich source of deep results of graph theory. I can highly recommend it to graduate students as well as professional mathematicians."

Bulletin of the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications

:) "... the whole work is a masterly elucidation of modern graph theory, and an important contribution to the literature of the subject."

Acta Scientiarum Mathematicarum

:) "We highly recommend this book for graph theorists, graduate students in graph theory, and anyone who needs graph theoretical methods in his/her work."

Amazon.com

:) "So, to learn the core of the pure graph theory, this book is your choice, espesially if you are a computer science student."

:) "An excellent book. With minimum knowledge and an open mind, you can work rapidly throughout this book."

:) "Almost no pre-requisites are needed for this book, and yet it will take you from the very basic notions, to research level problems in this subject."