References for Graph Theory

Chris Caldwell © 1995

1. K. Appel and W. Hankin, "Every planar map is 4-colorable," Bulletin of the AMS, Volume 82 (1976), 711-712.

2. A. Beck, M. Bleicher and D. Crowe, Excursion into Mathematics, Worth Publishers, 1969 (ISBN 0-87901-004-5). The first chapter (about 80 pages) introduces graph theory and many of its most interesting topics.  This book is written for those with two or three years of high school mathematics.

3. N. Biggs, E. Lloyd, and R. Wilson, Graph Theory 1736-1936, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1976 (ISBN 0-19-853901-0). This book gives a self contained historical introduction to graph theory using thirty-seven extracts from original articles (translated when necessary).

4. E. B. Dynkins and V. A. Uspenskii, Multicolor Problems, D. C. Heath and Company, Boston, 1963.  This excellent book predates the Four Color Theorem's proof.

5. L. Euler, "Solutio Problematis Ad geometriam Situs Pertinentis," Commenrarii Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae 8 (1736), pp. 128-140.  This article (extracted as the first article in Graph Theory 1736-1936) is arguably the article that began the study of graph theory.

6. O. Ore, The Four Color Problem, Academic Press, New York 1967.

   K. H. Rosen, Discrete Mathematics and its Applications, Random House, NY, 1988. (ISBN 0-394-36768-5, QA39.2 R654)  This college text, written for students that have completed college algebra, present graph theory in chapters seven and eight, and does so from an algorithmic viewpoint.

7. L. Steen editor, For All Practical Purposes : Introduction to Contemporary Mathematics 3ed. W. H. Freeman and Company, New York 1994. (ISBN 0-7167-2378-6, QA7.F68 1994)  This excellent text by the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications aims to show what mathematics is good for and what mathematicians do.  This freshman college level book starts with two very practical chapters on graph theory.