The above citations are taken from reviews of the initial French version of this text--a series of seven expository lectures that were given at the University of Montreal in November of 1975. The book uses the appealing theory of stable marriage to introduce and illustrate a variety of important concepts and techniques of computer science and mathematics: data structures, control structures, combinatorics, probability, analysis, algebra, and especially the analysis of algorithms.
The presentation is elementary, and the topics are interesting to nonspecialists. The theory is quite beautiful and developing rapidly. Exercises with answers, an annotated bibliography, and research problems are included. The text would be appropriate as supplementary reading for undergraduate research seminars or courses in algorithmic analysis and for graduate courses in combinatorial algorithms, operations research, economics, or analysis of algorithms.
Donald E. Knuth is one of the most prominent figures of modern computer science. His works in The Art of Computer Programming are classic. He is also renowned for his development of TeX and METAFONT. In 1996, Knuth won the prestigious Kyoto Prize, considered to be the nearest equivalent to a Nobel Prize in computer science.
