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The purpose of this book is to prepare the reader for coping with abstract mathematics. The intended audience is both students taking a first course in abstract algebra who feel the need to strengthen their background, and those from a more applied background who need some experience in dealing with abstract ideas. Learning any area of abstract mathematics requires not only ability to write formally but also to think intuitively about what is going on and to describe that process clearly and cogently in ordinary English. Ash tries to aid intuition by keeping proofs short and as informal as possible, and using concrete examples as illustration. Thus it is an ideal textbook for an audience with limited experience in formalism and abstraction. A number of expository innovations are included, for example, an informal development of set theory which teaches students all the basic results for algebra in one chapter