This well-developed, accessible text details the historical development of the subject throughout. It also provides wide-ranging coverage of significant results with comparatively elementary proofs, some of them new. This second edition contains two new chapters that provide a complete proof of the Mordel-Weil theorem for elliptic curves over the rational numbers and an overview of recent progress on the arithmetic of elliptic curves.
From the reviews of the second edition:
K. Ireland and M. Rosen
A Classical Introduction to Modern Number Theory
"Many mathematicians of this generation have reached the frontiers of research without having a good sense of the history of their subject. In number theory this historical ignorance is being alleviated by a number of fine recent books. This work stands among them as a unique and valuable contribution."
― MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS
"This is a great book, one that does exactly what it proposes to do, and does it well. For me, this is the go-to book whenever a student wants to do an advanced independent study project in number theory. ... for a student who wants to get started on the subject and has taken a basic course on elementary number theory and the standard abstract algebra course, this is perfect." (Fernando Q. Gouvêa, MathDL, January, 2006)
