''Categories for the Working Mathematician'' (''CWM'') is a textbook in

category theory Category theory is a general theory of mathematical structures and their relations that was introduced by Samuel Eilenberg and Saunders Mac Lane in the middle of the 20th century in their foundational work on algebraic topology. Nowadays, ca ...

written by American mathematician Saunders Mac Lane, who cofounded the subject together with Samuel Eilenberg. It was first published in 1971, and is based on his lectures on the subject given at the University of Chicago, the

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, and Tulane University. It is widely regarded as the premier introduction to the subject.

The book has twelve chapters, which are: :Chapter I. Categories, Functors, and Natural Transformations. :Chapter II. Constructions on Categories. :Chapter III. Universals and

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s. :Chapter IV. Adjoints. :Chapter V. Limits. :Chapter VI. Monads and Algebras. :Chapter VII. Monoids. :Chapter VIII. Abelian Categories. :Chapter IX. Special Limits. :Chapter X. Kan Extensions. :Chapter XI. Symmetry and Braiding in Monoidal Categories :Chapter XII. Structures in Categories. Chapters XI and XII were added in the 1998 second edition, the first in view of its importance in

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and

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, and the second to address higher-dimensional categories that have come into prominence. Although it is the classic reference for

, some of the terminology is not standard. In particular, Mac Lane attempted to settle an ambiguity in usage for the terms epimorphism and monomorphism by introducing the terms ''epic'' and ''monic,'' but the distinction is not in common use.

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{{reflist 1971 non-fiction books Mathematics books Monographs Category theory

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