🔖 Abstract and Concrete Categories: The Joy of Cats by Jiri Adamek, Horst Herrlich, and George E. Strecker

Bookmarked Abstract and Concrete Categories: The Joy of Cats by Jirí Adámek, Horst Herrlich, and George E. Strecker (goodreads.com)

This up-to-date introductory treatment employs the language of category theory to explore the theory of structures. Its unique approach stresses concrete categories, and each categorical notion features several examples that clearly illustrate specific and general cases. A systematic view of factorization structures, this volume contains seven chapters. The first five focus on basic theory, and the final two explore more recent research results in the realm of concrete categories, cartesian closed categories, and quasitopoi. Suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, it requires an elementary knowledge of set theory and can be used as a reference as well as a text. Updated by the authors in 2004, it offers a unifying perspective on earlier work and summarizes recent developments.

Mike Miller has announced in class that he’ll be using Abstract and Concrete Categories: The Joy of Cats as the textbook for his upcoming Introduction to Category Theory course at UCLA Extension this winter.

Naturally, he’ll be supplementing it heavily with his own notes.

A free .pdf copy of the text is also available online.