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Calculus 6th edtion: Metric International Version
Metric International Version of Calculus 6E by James Stewart.
Hardcover
Published January 1, 2009
About the author
James Stewart
1,280 books78 followersJames Stewart is a professor of mathematics and a violinist. He has written a number of textbooks, notably on calculus.
For other James Stewarts, see similar names.
For other James Stewarts, see similar names.
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
September 15, 2026
Three stars is possibly a bit harsh but, for me, the book didn’t deliver on its promises. Having been honed over many iterations of student feedback, I had expected a much better book. Having said that, I’m not really its target audience: retired, picking up maths again after 50 years by self-study, though with some very welcome help on occasions from ChatGPT — which turned out to be a great maths tutor!
Stewart tends to spend a couple of pages introducing a topic and then follows with many more pages of worked examples to further explore the area. I’d far rather the concepts were clearly articulated, rather than leaving the reader to deduce them for themselves. The occasional example to make an abstract idea concrete would have been more helpful to me than embedding these ideas in numerous worked examples. I often felt I was having to extract knowledge by reverse-engineering the examples.
Having finished the book, I think he doesn’t always clearly distinguish the wood from the trees. There’s too much algebraic gymnastics, which might be useful if your goal is to pass maths exams, but this often obscured the key ideas for me. The chapter on Vector Calculus felt particularly rushed — there are some tantalising ideas in there, but he doesn’t really do them justice.
At 1200+ pages, the book is also far too long, largely due to the sheer number of worked examples. From my, admittedly unrepresentative, perspective I’d prefer it either be split into several smaller and more focused books, or distilled to the core concepts, with more time spent exploring the underlying ideas rather than performing mechanical manipulations. If anyone knows of a Calculus book that fits the latter approach, please let me know!
Overall, I got a lot out of the book, but it took more effort than it should have, and ChatGPT was at times indispensable.
Stewart tends to spend a couple of pages introducing a topic and then follows with many more pages of worked examples to further explore the area. I’d far rather the concepts were clearly articulated, rather than leaving the reader to deduce them for themselves. The occasional example to make an abstract idea concrete would have been more helpful to me than embedding these ideas in numerous worked examples. I often felt I was having to extract knowledge by reverse-engineering the examples.
Having finished the book, I think he doesn’t always clearly distinguish the wood from the trees. There’s too much algebraic gymnastics, which might be useful if your goal is to pass maths exams, but this often obscured the key ideas for me. The chapter on Vector Calculus felt particularly rushed — there are some tantalising ideas in there, but he doesn’t really do them justice.
At 1200+ pages, the book is also far too long, largely due to the sheer number of worked examples. From my, admittedly unrepresentative, perspective I’d prefer it either be split into several smaller and more focused books, or distilled to the core concepts, with more time spent exploring the underlying ideas rather than performing mechanical manipulations. If anyone knows of a Calculus book that fits the latter approach, please let me know!
Overall, I got a lot out of the book, but it took more effort than it should have, and ChatGPT was at times indispensable.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review