I also remember taking a class on vector calculus from the same author... which detoured through rudimentary manifold theory and differential forms, and ended with a final week on de Rham cohomology and the Mayer-Vietoris theorem (on vector spaces, to be fair, and not modules in general.)
(And is a very fine K-theorist, too, if I say so myself.)
So, just from the contents ... does anything make this especially different from other discrete math books?
The first author is well known for teaching "wild ride" undergraduate classes where he compensates by spending a lot of time on their pedagogy.
He once taught an open to all freshman knot theory elective:
https://people.reed.edu/~ormsbyk/138/
I also remember taking a class on vector calculus from the same author... which detoured through rudimentary manifold theory and differential forms, and ended with a final week on de Rham cohomology and the Mayer-Vietoris theorem (on vector spaces, to be fair, and not modules in general.)
(And is a very fine K-theorist, too, if I say so myself.)
So, just from the contents ... does anything make this especially different from other discrete math books?