The author Stein is a leader in his field and has provided plenty of depth and breadth. This also means that he is on a different level and an argument that he calls "simple" has quite often taken me two pages to justify. However, if you put in the effort it will pay off tenfold."


"I used this book for an undergraduate-level course in Fourier analysis. It is an excellent text, although I would recommend the prospective learner to take a basic course in real analysis first (or perhaps concurrently, if the learner dares!). With my experience in analysis, it proved very readable. In fact, it strengthened my understanding of (and even interest in!) analysis, as it provides a fruitful application of the subject--one gets to see various important analysis ideas and techniques used in context. One could almost say that the text is an excellent complement to real analysis to help the ideas jell. On the other hand, perhaps it is theoretically possible to use this book as a springboard into learning analysis. The proofs do gloss over some details, which as the previous reviewer noted, can make things tough going at times... I actually found this useful (again, perhaps because of analysis experience), as it omits just enough detail to stay focused on the subject at hand (being too pedantic is likely to make those of shorter attention spans, such as myself, want to wander away), and yet supplies enough detail to remind the reader of the underlying theory, and that all this stuff is mathematically rigorously justified.

The course I took was actually a brand-new course created at the undergraduate level, and was structured around the book, which had also just come out at the time. I can say with confidence that the course was a success, which is pretty unusual for something hot off the press (true, the book itself was based on lectures, but every university has its quirks...)."