Self-contained exposition presents the major results on congruence lattices of finite lattices Includes the latest findings from a pioneering researcher in the field Features the author's signature "Proof-by-Picture" method and its conversion to transparencies Contains complete proofs, an extensive bibliography and index, and nearly 80 open problems Excellent grad text and reference

This is a self-contained exposition by one of the leading experts in lattice theory, George Grätzer, presenting the major results of the last 70 years on congruence lattices of finite lattices, featuring the author's signature Proof-by-Picture method. Key features: * Insightful discussion of techniques to construct "nice" finite lattices with given congruence lattices and "nice" congruence-preserving extensions * Contains complete proofs, an extensive bibliography and index, and over 140 illustrations * This new edition includes two new parts on Planar Semimodular Lattices and The Order of Principle Congruences, covering the research of the last 10 years The book is appropriate for a one-semester graduate course in lattice theory, and it is a practical reference for researchers studying lattices. Reviews of the first edition: "There exist a lot of interesting results in this area of lattice theory, and some of them are presented in this book. [This] monograph...is an exceptional work in lattice theory, like all the contributions by this author. ... The way this book is written makes it extremely interesting for the specialists in the field but also for the students in lattice theory. Moreover, the author provides a series of companion lectures which help the reader to approach the Proof-by-Picture sections." (Cosmin Pelea, Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Mathematica, Vol. LII (1), 2007) "The book is self-contained, with many detailed proofs presented that can be followed step-by-step. [I]n addition to giving the full formal details of the proofs, the author chooses a somehow more pedagogical way that he calls Proof-by-Picture, somehow related to the combinatorial (as opposed to algebraic) nature of many of the presented results. I believe that this book is a much-needed tool for any mathematician wishing a gentle introduction to the field of congruences representations of finite lattices, with emphasis on the more 'geometric' aspects." —Mathematical Reviews

This monograph is concerned with the relationships between Maltsev conditions, commutator theories and the shapes of congruence lattices in varieties of algebras. The authors develop the theories of the strong commutator, the rectangular commutator, the strong rectangular commutator, as well as a solvability theory for the nonmodular TC commutator. They prove that a residually small variety that satisfies a congruence identity is congruence modular.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, George Boole's attempt to formalize propositional logic led to the concept of Boolean algebras. While investigating the axiomatics of Boolean algebras at the end of the nineteenth century, Charles S. Peirce and Ernst Schröder found it useful to introduce the lattice concept. Independently, Richard Dedekind's research on ideals of algebraic numbers led to the same discov ery. In fact, Dedekind also introduced modularity, a weakened form of distri butivity. Although some of the early results of these mathematicians and of Edward V. Huntington are very elegant and far from trivial, they did not attract the attention of the mathematical community. It was Garrett Birkhoff's work in the mid-thirties that started the general develop ment of lattice theory. In a brilliant series of papers he demonstrated the importance of lattice theory and showed that it provides a unifying framework for hitherto unrelated developments in many mathematical disciplines. Birkhoff himself, Valere Glivenko, Karl Menger, John von Neumann, Oystein Ore, and others had developed enough of this new field for Birkhoff to attempt to "seIl" it to the general mathematical community, which he did with astonishing success in the first edition of his Lattice Theory. The further development of the subject matter can best be followed by com paring the first, second, and third editions of his book (G. Birkhoff [1940], [1948], and [1967]).

This book started with Lattice Theory, First Concepts, in 1971. Then came General Lattice Theory, First Edition, in 1978, and the Second Edition twenty years later. Since the publication of the first edition in 1978, General Lattice Theory has become the authoritative introduction to lattice theory for graduate students and the standard reference for researchers. The First Edition set out to introduce and survey lattice theory. Some 12,000 papers have been published in the field since then; so Lattice Theory: Foundation focuses on introducing the field, laying the foundation for special topics and applications. Lattice Theory: Foundation, based on the previous three books, covers the fundamental concepts and results. The main topics are distributivity, congruences, constructions, modularity and semimodularity, varieties, and free products. The chapter on constructions is new, all the other chapters are revised and expanded versions from the earlier volumes. Almost 40 “diamond sections’’, many written by leading specialists in these fields, provide a brief glimpse into special topics beyond the basics. “Lattice theory has come a long way... For those who appreciate lattice theory, or who are curious about its techniques and intriguing internal problems, Professor Grätzer's lucid new book provides a most valuable guide to many recent developments. Even a cursory reading should provide those few who may still believe that lattice theory is superficial or naive, with convincing evidence of its technical depth and sophistication.” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society “Grätzer’s book General Lattice Theory has become the lattice theorist’s bible.” Mathematical Reviews

Universal Algebra has become the most authoritative, consistently relied on text in a field with applications in other branches of algebra and other fields such as combinatorics, geometry, and computer science. Each chapter is followed by an extensive list of exercises and problems. The "state of the art" account also includes new appendices (with contributions from B. Jónsson, R. Quackenbush, W. Taylor, and G. Wenzel) and a well selected additional bibliography of over 1250 papers and books which makes this an indispensable new edition for students, faculty, and workers in the field.