560
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #29,794 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★★★★
Keep adding stars and don't stop
There are two kinds of people who will read this review. Those who already know the book and want me to review the edition, and those who don't know the book.
To the first; this is a no-glue sturdy edition - happy to be photocopied - with all of the books bound in one nice portable volume. Despite being reasonably compact, there is ample space on every page for notes, and the diagrams are large and clear. It's really good.
To the second;THIS IS THE BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN BY A HUMAN. I'm not kidding and I'm not exaggerating; there is no way to express the joy of reading Euclid without sounding like a lunatic. There are very few books which reach their umpteenth thousandth edition without promising a posthumous infinity of bliss. The bliss of 'The Elements' is admittedly finite, but it delivers right away. This is an electrifying piece of work which has produced a chorus of rapture and inspiration lasting two millennia. Poets have penned homage to its beauty. Philosophers and mathematicians have wept. Theologians saw God in its perfection. As war, pestilence and plague tortured humanity, as the empires of despots rose and crumbled, the devout risked death rather than surrender this book. Why? Because they had read it.
It is a cure for math-phobia, and can be read by anyone who is at least a little studious and over the age of 12.
