Question

I have recently been told of a proposal to produce an English translation of Landau's Handbuch der Lehre von der Verteilung der Primzahlen, and this prompts me to ask a more general question:

Which foreign-language books would you most like to see translated into English?

These could be classics of historical interest, books you would like your students to read, books you would like to teach from, or books of use in your own research.

Answer 1

Grothendieck's EGA and SGA.

Answer 2

Gabriel's dissertation,Serre's FAC and Beilinson-Bernstein-Deligne

Answer 3

Friedrich Levi, Geometrische Konfigurationen

Answer 4

Re: For publication of EGA and SGA, see this: http://www.grothendieckcircle.org/

Answer 5

Kalkül der abzählenden Geometrie By Hermann Schubert

Lehrbuch der abzählenden Methoden der Geometrie By Hieronymus Georg Zeuthen

Answer 6

Geometrie der Gewebe by W. Blaschke, and G. Bol

Geradenkonfigurationen und algebraische Flächen by G. Barthel, F. Hirzebruch, and T. Höfer

Answer 7

Endliche Gruppen by Huppert, though the German is like the French in EGA: "easy" going.

Answer 8

Hanspeter Kraft's invariant theory book.

Answer 9

Oh my. Since English is already so overwhelming in international scientific literature, I think it will look a bit peculiar to the non-native English speakers who read this site to see a question like this asking for yet more work to be put in English. Perhaps those of us who already speak that language should expend some more effort in the other direction if we want to read something in those other languages.

Answer 10

Chirurgie des grassmanniennes by Laurent Lafforgue.

http://www.ihes.fr/~lafforgue/math/M02-45.pdf

Answer 11

The other two volumes of Kazuya Kato's trilogy on Number Theory (the first vol. is "Fermat's Dream").

Answer 12

I'd second Allen Knutson's suggestion that the book Geometrische Methoden in der Invariantentheorie by Hanspeter Kraft (Vieweg, 1984) is a good candidate for translation into English. Since AMS distributes several Vieweg series in English versions, I'd suggest asking Sergei Gelfand at AMS whether such a translation could be commissioned by them.

Like most native users of English, I find mathematical French far easier than mathematical German. In any event, French books and papers are less likely to get translated than German ones. As far as books go, I regret that J.C. Jantzen's useful Springer Ergebnisse volume on primitive ideals in enveloping algebras is not available in English. His later books in English have become standard references for representations of algebraic groups and for quantized enveloping algebras.

Answer 13

"La Clef des Songes", "Récoltes et Semailles" and the Long March through Galois Theory.

Answer 14

Don Zagier's German book about quadratic forms.

Answer 15

Analysis Situs by Poincare.

This is the foundation of algebraic topology and illustrates its historical connection with dynamics.

According to Wikipedia it has been translated, but I can't find a copy in English.

Answer 16

Fricke and Klein.

Answer 17

Gesammelte Abhandlungen (Collected Works) of Carl Ludwig Siegel

(According to Amazon.com a trilingual version of this once existed, but I can't find it.)

Answer 18

Bombieri's "Le Grand Crible dans la Théorie Analytique des Nombres"

Answer 19

The Collected Work of Carl Ludwig Siegel.

Answer 20

[original suggestion/answer by Andrew L]

Constantin Carathéodory's Vorlesungen über Reelle Funktionen. Why this book has never been translated into English is simply a mystery to me.

And while he's at it, let's get whoever's on that case to get Courant and Hurewitz's treatise on complex functions into English as well, so I can see finally if it's as good as Serge Lang always said it was...

2 last requests while I'm at it: Faddeev's 1984 Lectures In Algebra and the second edition of Kostrikin's 3 volume Introduction To Algebra. I'm such a sucker for Russian texts, they're so beautiful and concrete with connections to physics. We Westerners can learn so much from their approach.

Answer 21

Teubner-Taschenbuch der Mathematik Teil II

The first part (Teil I) of this book was translated into English as the Oxford User's Guide to Mathematics

Answer 22

Chebotarev's "Grundzüge der Galois'schen Theorie"

Answer 23

"Champs algébriques" by Laumon and Moret-Bailly.

Answer 24

"Arithmetique Des Algebres De Quaternions" by MF Vigneras

Answer 25

Over de Grondslagen der Wiskunde , L.E.J Brouwer, his thesis (in Dutch) on the foundations of mathematics.

Answer 26

Équations différentielles à points singuliers réguliers, by Deligne.

Answer 27

Catégories et structures by Charrles Ehresmann

Answer 28

G. Banaszak, W. Gajda - Elementy Algebry Liniowej (Elements of Linear Algebra), Poland, WNT - 2 tomes - Don't let the name fool you. This recent publication has more linear algebra than you can shake a stick at. It's a very comprehensive course of linear, and some abstract, algebra; very beautifully printed, lots of decorative markup. The book is very well structured, but is not easy and requires the reader to be fully aware of what's going on. It can be a bit of a mind wringer, but on the other hand that can force you to look at many things from the writers' - quite original sometimes - viewpoint. Tome 1 on the publisher's website

This is just a quick round-up of some good books in Mathematics. Hope this helps!

Answer 29

F. Prus-Wisniowski - Szeregi Rzeczywiste (Poland, Uniwersytet Szczecinski) - a monograph on real series. It can be read by first-year students while supplying the reader with very powerful tools for real (and sometimes complex) series; it might surprise the PhD reader. More importantly, it builds a good understanding of the way real series work. Publisher's website

Answer 30

B. P. Demidovich - Problems on Multivariate Analysis (approximate translation). A very tough book about analysis on $\mathbb{R}^n$; in fact all problems 'can' be solved by first or seond-year students, but it's got lots of tricky questions that will not let you sleep at night. Only the best need apply - the book gives you the most basic definitions and then throws you out with a broken pontoon in the middle of the ocean, at night. I believe the writer is Russian or Belorussian, I have only encountered a few tattered copies that have been doing the rounds between students for a decade at least. Haven't found a better book for tough multivariate analysis.