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> "Topics in Algebra" by Herstein. this is a lovely book and beautifully written but some of the notation is a bit dated

Now you make me feel old! I had the second edition just as it came out in 1984. A long time ago but I remember it as one of my favourites.

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I heard from somewhere that Herstein was an Emil Artin student at Princeton.

Herstein went to the extra trouble to make his linear algebra also work for finite fields.

In the back he has group representation theory is a small nutshell.

Also in the back he does linear programming, but his treatment is obscure and for no good reason. Since then nearly every treatment, beginner or advanced is not obscure at all.

Math genealogy project says Herstein was a student of Max Zorn (the guy the lemma is named after), but Zorn was a student of Artin! Zorn doctorized under Artin in Hamburg in 1930, before Artin moved to Princeton.

https://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=6526

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