Your favorite math reference book(s)?

[matthiaspaul]

(12-30-2017 12:09 AM)pier4r Wrote:  While I appreciate the sources from Germany (since sooner or later I will master the German language), I wonder why they are, well, all from East Germany (or Russia through East Germany). Impressive.

Grown up in Western Germany I have asked myself this question many times as well.

It probably was a combination of several factors, some of which have been already mentioned. Also, the (usually rather low) book prices in East Germany were dictated through so called Preisanordnungen (PAOs) by their government for political reasons (prestige, education) and didn't (had to) reflect actual product costs or the amount of time spent on preparing a book - so authors and publishers could spend much more time improving the contents than publishers in the West which had to make a profit to survive.

Greetings,

Matthias