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Basic Real Analysis

Houshang H. Sohrab
Publisher: 
Birkhäuser
Publication Date: 
2003
Number of Pages: 
559
Format: 
Hardcover
Price: 
59.95
ISBN: 
0-8176-4211-0
Category: 
Textbook
[Reviewed by
Underwood Dudley
, on
04/11/2006
]

This is a text for a one-year course in real analysis for graduate students (or for very good undergraduates).  Reviews that give tables of contents can justifiably be called boring, but someone looking for a text for a course whose content is not the same at all times and in all places needs to know what it contains, so look at the table of contents besides reading this review. I should add to the listing of contents that the Lebesgue integral is done using Riesz's approach, that is, using the order integral, then measure, rather than measure, then integral.

The treatment is clear and thorough.  Everything is here.  The author includes exercises in the text that readers are expected to do, or at least think about, as they go along.  There are extensive problem lists at the end of chapters, which is a way of guaranteeing that nothing will be left out.  For example, after the last chapter there are one hundred and fifteen problems, including Egorov's Theorem, the Hölder and Minkowski inequalities, and a good deal of theoretical probability.  This is a very rich book.  Serious students would benefit greatly from it.

Traditional reviews start by giving the table of contents and end by noting two or three misprints that the alert reviewer has noticed.  Well, I didn't see any misprints, nor any grammatical errors.  The book is a pleasure to handle, physically and intellectually.


Woody Dudley, whose training in real analysis dates back forty-seven years, can no longer do one hundred and fifteen problems but sees no reason why those younger and more vigorous shouldn't be required to.

 

Preface

Set Theory

Sequences and Series of Real Numbers

Limits of Functions

Topology of R and Continuity

Metric Spaces

The Derivative

The Riemann Integral

Sequences and Series of Functions

Normed and Function Spaces

The Lebesgue Integral

Lebesgue Measure

General Measure and Probability

Appendix A: Construction of Real Numbers

References

Index