The goal of the book is to present a tapestry of ideas from various areas of mathematics in a clear and rigorous yet informal and friendly way. Prerequisites in

Surfaces are among the most common and easily visualized mathematical objects, and their study brings into focus fundamental ideas, concepts, and methods from g

In this book, Miranda takes the approach that algebraic curves are best encountered for the first time over the complex numbers, where the reader's classical in

The problem of enumerating maps (a map is a set of polygonal "countries" on a world of a certain topology, not necessarily the plane or the sphere) is an import

The geometry of surfaces is an ideal starting point for learning geometry, for, among other reasons, the theory of surfaces of constant curvature has maximal co