Calculus: Early Transcendentals (Stewart's Calculus Series)

It also makes an amazing reference book whenever you are doing other work. But beware, there are quite a bunch of typos, so don't take every single formula in it as definite unless you've double checked it yourself.


Excellent college calculus text   January 7, 2004
Corey (Berkeley, CA)
15 out of 18 found this review helpful

Contrary to what some reviewers have written, I feel that Stewart's Calculus book is easily the best textbook I have encountered so far in college. In my opinion, the best indication of a textbook's worth is having to learn the material solely through the text, instead in addition to a lecturer; this book passed that test with flying colors.

Of course I had calculus lecturers, but every one of them was horrible. For Calc I (single variable), the professor spoke in a thick Russian accent; in Calc II (advanced integration/series, sequences), the professor was simply inadequate and didn't know how to explain anything; in Calc III (multivariable), the professor was a crazy Polish guy bent on teaching us calculus using his own weird linear algebra/advanced math methods (you'd think Berkeley might assign some better math professors...). In every case, I ended up shunning the lectures and learning everything straight from Stewart. Every chapter was teeming with great example problems, and wasn't saturated with unnecessary proofs (read the Principia or other advanced books if you're interested in that sort of thing). Perhaps the homework problems weren't always as challenging as other books, but I'd rather understand the problems than sit around staring an unsolvable puzzle for 3 hours.

Again I say, best college text I've had so far. I highly recommend it.


Great Content Expertly Delivered   April 15, 2005
Chandler Savage (Eugene, OR)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

I used this textbook for a three term, year-long Calculus sequence at the University of Oregon, and I must say, it's a terrific text.

Many examples are given in each section about the new concepts explored. Plenty of challenging exercises allows the student to get an ample amount of practice.

The layout and design of the book is nearly flawless. Important formulas are outlined in red, main ideas are in bold, and graphs and pictorial figures are well colored. Don't overlook this as superfluous! Layout and Design can really help the student remember the concepts and digest the information easier.

Finally, the text includes worked out problems lead by visual and auditory explanations on CD. While this is not entirely necessary, it is a nice bonus.

Overall, I highly recommend Stewart's Calculus series of texts, and hope my school continues to use his Multivariable version in my "Several Variable Calculus" class in the fall.



The Calculus Bible   May 11, 2006
Joey Pittman (Edmonton, AB, Ca)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

If you need to buy one calculus book... buy this one. It's got everything you will need for learning basic calculus. I was referring to this book constantly, both while taking basic math, and in more advanced courses in physics and engineering, when I would need to go back and re-learn how to integrate a particular type of problem. I was actually quite shocked to see that the last several reviews rated this book quite poorly... everyone who took math with me using this book loved it. Then again, we were all engineers, so we wanted to be doing this kind of stuff.


A very clear exposition of calculus   January 24, 2007
Rambam HaTalmid (Sydney Australia)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This book is excellent.It is immediately obvious that the author understands his subject well AND can communicate his understanding clearly.It takes a traditionally feared subject and makes it clear and easy to understand.


I strongly recommend this book. I am currently using it to teach my grade 11 son calculus. He finds it far clearer and easier to understand than his school calculus textbook.

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