Blue Collar Scholar Textbooks : Making Quality Classic Texts For Higher Mathematics Education
Affordable For All !
Welcome one and all aspiring to
mathematics to the grand
opening of a textbook publishing
company like no other-
Blue Collar Scholar!
From the delusional idealist who
brought to the internet our sister site,
TULOOMATH– here, for all students,
teachers, researchers and just plain
hobbyists who enjoy the beauty of the
language of nature, we proudly present
a new source for outstanding and
inexpensive higher mathematics
textbooks!
These textbooks will range in subject
matter from high school algebra and
geometry through all university level
subjects such as calculus, linear and
abstract algebra, ordinary and partial
differential equations, real and
complex analysis, probability and
statistics; point-set, geometric and
algebraic topology
and so much more!
Don’t look now- but you’ve arrived at
the site of a revolution.
The quiet revolution I’m talking about is the burgeoning world of online self-publishing-in particular, the self-publishing of academic textbooks. There was a time, not so long ago, when publishing a mathematics textbook required a deal with one of the major publishers-and unless you were a Fields Medal winner at Harvard, you were basically at their mercy even if they decided to bless you with a contract for your text. They dictated length, what they wanted in the book, how many graphics, that section’s too tough for American students, complete ownership of the copyright for a century if the book was successful-on and on and on. And after all that pain and suffering, the resulting text is so expensive, the author can’t even recommend it to his or her own students because they’ll have to take out a loan to purchase it. This is why until recently so many practicing scientists-and mathematicians in particular-would cringe when you suggested writing a textbook. Even if writing such a book in their field was a labor of love for them, the misery of getting it published sucked all the joy out of it.
Sadly, this is part of a larger social regression over the last 30 years in America of making higher education a career necessity that simultaneously, is purely a profit making machine with increasingly restricted access to the children of the non-wealthy. Horrifyingly, with the charter school/academic reform movement, this thinking is even now spreading to grade and secondary schools where quality public schools are rapidly becoming extinct. The result is an entire generation is crippled with lifelong debt and steadily diminishing earning prospects, while the prospects of their children even being able to read, let alone go to college, erodes with each new administration. And this is a crisis on both political sides borne of the increasingly plutocratic nature of our nation.
(I was truly hoping to keep this preface entirely apolitical. But I realized it’s really impossible to coherently explain the motivations for this project without some digression on the current situation in American society.)
As someone who was trained at The City University of New York, this situation makes me want to put my fist through a wall. The thought of my future descendants’ subsistence farming in Pan-Em to survive while wondering what magic holds the moon up, if it’s really made of cheese and kneeling to passing Lords and Ladies of America while they snicker is a nightmare I wake up consistently from now.
Education should be a right every citizen should have a realistic chance at-and if our government is being paid off to ensure only children of the privileged have that right, then it’s up to us to create alternatives.
I decided that I was going to do what little I could to ensure that future didn’t come to pass. And the best way to do that was to create methods of self-education available to all people via the web and low cost purchases. Since my area of interest is mathematics and the physical sciences, I’d focus on that.
My first, rather shallow attempt was when, as a graduate student, I began the blog Tables, Chairs And Beermugs -the title being an ode to Hilbert’s famous quote and referring to the rather ubiquitous subject matter of the blog. Despite the planned diverse nature of the blog’s content, my health problems and distractions of my personal life prevented me from making the blog as successful as it could have been. Part of the problem was lack of focus in the posts. I’m now turning back to it and focusing its’ subject matter on purely mathematical matters: Textbook reviews, academic commentary and research topics. I hope this will not only improve the blog’s quality, but allow it to attract more of an audience on the virtual data torrents. But even so, it wouldn’t make a dent in my stated goals.
The second, much more significant attempt by me to make a contribution to this revolution was the massive WordPress website, Tuloomath , to which I dedicated a year and a half of my precious life with no formal computer science training building.
The website’s purpose is clear in the
name, which is an acronym for the
following mouthful: The Universal
Lyceum Of Online Mathematics. A
lyceum is a library or repository of
information. That’s precisely what this
was intended to be-a complete one
-stop link collection for quality free
sources of study-lecture notes and
online textbook drafts-on the internet
for impoverished students of
mathematics at all levels from
secondary school algebra and
geometry to university PhD research
topics.
Sadly, the response, while
positive from users, hasn’t gotten the
traffic I’d desired. Obviously, to be
effective, such a site needs to be
constantly revised as nothing is more
ephemeral then links to posted lecture
notes on the World Wide Web.
( I haven’t abandoned the site by any stretch of the imagination. After a number of setback,I plan a major revision by Fall 2020.)
But even if this website eventually
becomes a beating heart in the web
academic body, it’s sadly only partially
a solution to the inability of most
impoverished students and scholars to
buy more than a handful of
quality mathematics textbooks.
This Homepage you’ve arrived at is the
beginning of the major third stage of
my contribution to the revolution.
One of our immediate goals will be the
republication of many classic
textbooks that have been out of print
for years or decades in very
inexpensive editions. Our long term
aspiration is for the company is to
eventually publish original paperback
works at the same low prices.
When I finally took the plunge and
decided to begin a publishing
company, I had very clear directives
and intentions for it and these grew
out of what I attempted for both my
blog and the website linked earlier.
In our increasingly plutocratic, vastly
unequal and education-privileged
country, it’s becoming an absolute
necessity for non-aristocratic students
and self-learners to have affordable
learning resources, primarily
textbooks.
As public education is slowly and
systematically degraded and the
remaining state funds directed to
private schools in America, self-
education is going to once again
become the only possible means for
the lower classes to achieve any level of
higher education. As tragic as this is,
it’s becoming very clear to anyone
paying attention that low-cost
textbooks need to be available to
prevent our world from becoming the
feudal nightmare described above.
Once I made the decision, I was
absolutely obsessed with getting this
done as soon as possible.
As far as inexpensive university level
science textbooks, particularly in
physics and mathematics, this niche is,
of course, far from empty. The
publishing colossus Dover Books has,
of course, for decades been the sole
provider of quality, low cost reprinted
paperbacks and has to serve as the
model for anyone attempting to
penetrate this market. As a former
student of very limited resources who
relied heavily on Dover books for my
educational tools, I can honestly say
for the most part, they’ve done a
spectacular job of making great
sources available again.
Anyone beginning a publishing
company even attempting to
realistically compete with Dover is
delusional and doomed to failure, pure
and simple. Fortunately, I believe this
market is both vastly large and
sparsely inhabited with publishers.
Dover has really been the only major
player. As a result. I believe there is
more than enough room for new
publishers to grow to significant profit
levels using this model without even
beginning to make a dent in Dover’s
bottom line.
Monopolies are not what capitalism is
supposed to be about and supplying
buyers with choices is very important,
both morally and economically.
The existence of alternatives to Dover
without actively competing with it can
only help this market as long as those
alternatives are attempting to bring
something novel and helpful to those
academic purchasers.
I wouldn’t blame you if you want to
skip the self-indulgent diatribe by the
founder and get right to the textbooks.
But I hope you will read our mission
statement here to let you know a bit
more about how this company came to
be and what we hope to achieve in the
future.
If not, onward to our
storefront and our currently
available titles!!!
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Hey there! Someone in my Myspace group shared this sitewith us so I came to give it a look. I’m definitely enjoying the information. I’mbook-marking and will be tweeting this to my followers!Terrific blog and superb style and design.
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Thank you for the kind words-spread the word and even better, BUY THE BOOKS FOR YOURSELF OR OTHERS IN YOUR LIFE!
They’re quality and inexpensive, which our country desperately needs right now for higher education.
Sincerely,
Karo M.
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Hhmmm.. attempt #2.
I bought a copy of your reissue of Cartan in support (though I have the Houghton-Miffler version and the original French version). Please consider increasing the font size in your introduction.
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Dear Nemo,
First,thanks for your support and I hope you enjoyed my additions to the new edition. Second-sorry about the font size,it was my first published book and I was still learning the ropes. Still am, in fact. If you purchase any of my other books, you’ll see I’m using a much larger font for the additions now and plan to use LaTeX to write them in the future.
Again,thanks for your support and all feedback in appreciated!
K.M.
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Dear Nemo.
I have to republish it in a new Edition to do that-so I’m rather hesitant to do that because it will disrupt sales. Cartan is currently my steadiest seller. When an opportunity presents itself, I’ll do so, ok?
Thanks for the feedback.
K.M.
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I bought a kindle version Linear Algebra For All Undergraduates[Kindle Edition]
By: D.C. Murdoch , Karo Maestro
Sold by: Amazon Asia-Pacific Holdings Private Limited
in amazon.in. It has only 19 pages, just your introduction.
I have asked for refund. I will buy it when the issue is sorted out. Please drop me a line when you fix the issue.
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Yikes, that is VERY strange. I’ve got to try and fix the Kindle edition. I’m REALLY sorry you had such problems. I’ll check it out and let you know when it’s fixed. Thanks for informing me of the issue!
As far as the recommended textbooks go-one of the working assumptions of the BCS series is that unless absolutely necessary, we’re trying to recommend books that are as inexpensive as possible at the levels discussed. Until recently, both Hoffman and Kunze and Godement’s books were quite expensive. I agree with you about H/K, but the cost and it’s difficulty level made me decide to leave it out. Perhaps that was a mistake-I’m still new at this! BTW, I understand there’s now an inexpensive edition of H/K out.
I’ll let you know when the situation with the Kindle version is resolved! My bad!
Sincerely,
K.M.
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Ok, wanted to let you know that I’ve fixed the Kindle version-it should be fine for purchase now. Really sorry about that! I’ll be updating the website next week and the Amazon page to reflect the repair, but you could spread the word if you like!
Thanks again for bringing it to my attention!
Sincerely,
Karo M.
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I just checked amazon. It still says 19 pages.
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I don’t understand that, the amazon page should have been updated as well. I’m going to have to check it out and contact Kindle. I’ve downloaded the Kindle book,though-it’s definitely been updated with the full book.That’s an error.
I’ll check into it, that’s bizarre.
Karo M.
UPDATE 11-26-2019 Alright, the Amazon page seems to have been finally fixed now. Thanks for letting me know.
K.M.