# Looking for a book on Calculus

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-book-on-calculus/279346>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 11, 2004, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-book-on-calculus/279346 "2004-12-11T20:36:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Mathochist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c89c15/32.png) [@Mathochist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mathochist)\
**Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-book-on-calculus/279346/21 "2004-12-13T01:01:51Z")

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> [@Thudlow Boink](#):
>
> There are some interesting replies here, but I’d like to answer the OP a different way. What he saidsuggests to me that what he may be missing, that this college wants him to have, is not necessarily so much the theoretical details of _Calculus_ specifically, as an exposure to how rigorous, theoretical math works. They want him to get some experience writing proofs, etc. For most people, this is not something one can easily pick up on one’s own, especially from a book that already assumes familiarity with this kind of approach rather than one that’s designed to teach it.

Well, the OP asked for more theoretical _calculus_ books, which is why I originally shied away from giving reccomendations on “advanced calculus” or real analysis texts (advanced calculus being distinguished by reworking pretty much all of a standard three-course sequence in calculus from the axiomatic description of the real numbers on up).

If he’s looking for a good introduction to proofs and so on, I’d actually recommend looking into an abstract algebra text rather than advanced calculus, despite the analysis-addicted current vogue.

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