• Informal and entertaining style, yet mathematically precise and entertaining
• Concentrates on developing mathematical thinking and skills rather than accumulating facts
• Written by internationally renowned mathematicians with extensive teaching experience
• Large collection of exercises and problems
• Over 200 drawings and diagrams

New to this edition

• New chapters on partially ordered sets and Ramsey's Theorem
• New sections on Tuarán's Theorem
• Proofs of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, Cayley's Formula, and the determinant formula for counting spanning trees

Readership: Undergraduates and early graduates in mathematics and computer science

Jirí Matousek, Professor of Computer Science, Charles University, Prague, and Jaroslav Nesetril, Professor of Mathematics, Charles University, Prague

Review(s) from previous edition

"'The book is a self-contained introduction to discrete mathematics, and in particular to combinatorics and graph theory. It is aimed at undergraduate and early graduate students and encourages an active, problem-solving approach to the material. The book treats selected topics in unusual depth and from several points of view.' - Zentralblatt fur Didaktik der Mathematik

"'...a far-from-traditional textbook and...a joy to read. The text is lucid and sprinkled with small jokes and background stories.' " - Times Higher Education Supplement, Friday 26th November 1999

Preface to the second edition
Preface to the first edition
1: Introduction and basic concepts
2: Orderings
3: Combinatorial counting
4: Graphs: an introduction
5: Trees
6: Drawing graphs in the plane
7: Double-counting
8: The number of spanning trees
9: Finite projective planes
10: Probability and probabilistic proofs
11: Order from disorder: Ramsey's theorem
12: Generating functions
13: Applications of linear algebra
Appendix
Bibliography
Hints to selected exercises
Index