If anything at all can be deduced from the two quotations at the top of this page, perhaps it is this: Combinatorics is an essential part of the human spirit; but it is a difficult subject foi the abstract, axiomatising Bourbaki school of mathematics to comprehend. Nevertheless, the advent of computers and electronic communications have made it a more important subject than ever. .
This is a textbook on combinatorics. It's based on my experience of more than twenty years of research and, more specifically, on teaching a course at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, since 1986. The book presupposes some mathematical knowledge. The first part (Chapters 2-11) could be studied by a second-year British undergraduate; but I hope that more advanced students will find something interesting here too (especially in the Projects, which may be skipped without much loss by beginners). The second half (Chapters 12-20) is in a more condensed style, more suited to postgraduate students. I am grateful to many colleagues, friends and students for all kinds of contributions, some of which are acknowledged in the text; and to Neill Cameron, for the illustration on p.
128. have not provided a table of dependencies between chapters. Everything is connected; but combinatorics is, by nature, broad rather than deep. The more important connections are indicated at the start of the chapters.