Review
' ... this is a marvellous tome, which is indeed a delight to read. This book is destined to become very popular amongst students and teachers alike.' Bulletin of the Belgian Mathematical Society '... clear and concise ... makes the book useful both as a basis for courses and as a reference work.' Monatshefte fur Mathematik '... the truly unusual abundance of instructive examples and complementing exercises is absolutely unique of such a kind ... the distinctly circumspect, methodologically inductive, intuitive, descriptively elucidating and very detailed style of writing give evidence to the fact that the author's first priorities are exactly what students need when working with such a textbook, namely clarity, readability, steady motivation, guided inspiration, increasing demand, and as much self-containedness of the exposition as possible. No doubt, a very devoted and experienced teacher has been at work here, very much so to the benefit of beginners in the field of algebraic topology, instructors, and interested readers in general.' Zentralblatt MATH
Review
"Algebraic topoligy books that emphasize geometrical intuition usually have only a modest technical reach. Remarkably, Hatcher (Cornell Univ.) offers a highly geometrical treatment that neverheless matches the coverage of, e.g., Edwin Henry Spanier's very formidable and identically titled classic work... He promises two advanced companion volumes, one on spectral sequences, one on vector bundles. One anticipates the combined treatise doing for algebraic topology what Michael Spivak's magisterial five-volume set did for differential geometry." Choice