Bridging the gap between elementary number theory and the systematic study of advanced topics, is a well-developed and accessible text that requires only a familiarity with basic abstract algebra. Historical development is stressed throughout, along with wide-ranging coverage of significant results with comparatively elementary proofs, some of them new. An extensive bibliography and many challenging exercises are also included. This second edition has been corrected and contains two new chapters which provide a complete proof of the Mordell-Weil theorem for elliptic curves over the rational numbers, and an overview of recent progress on the arithmetic of elliptic curves.weiterlesen