why webbook?

Many man years go into preparing a highly specialized manuscript aiming at a small specialized audience, and the economics of royalties has to be weighted against the impact that a more accessible manuscript might have. It is better to have a webbook accessible to one and all, continuously improved, at the forefront rather than chiseled in stone.
Despite the undeniable pleasure of taking a real book to bed, a technical ebook is already superior to a paper text in several ways. The main advantages of the pdf version of this webbook is that the equations, sections, references and index cross-referencing are hyperlinked, so one can effortlessly jump back and forth through the text.
In introducing a field, there are contradictory impulses to conciseness (so the key ideas get across within reasonable reading time) and scholarly completeness. Webbook allows for branching into levels of details suited to individual reader's interests, and providing up-to-date links to other relevant material.
If you like the book, please get a paper copy from the Princeton University Press.

Other frequently asked questions