Recently, I managed to get my hands on a scanned copy of (the classic Allyn & Bacon, 1966 edition). After spending a few weeks working through its pages, I feel like I have wrestled with a mathematical griffin. Here is my honest take on why this book is simultaneously revered and feared. The First Impression: Dense and Proud Unlike the friendly, conversational tone of Munkres (which is the standard for most undergrads), Dugundji assumes you are an adult. The PDF opens not with hand-holding, but with a brisk introduction to classes and proper classes —a nod to the Kelley/Mac Lane school of thought. If you are expecting colorful diagrams every other page, you will be disappointed. The diagrams here are sparse, functional, and almost primitive in the scanned copy.
Is it outdated? In typesetting, yes. In mathematical rigor, no. Dugundji’s topological foundation is still the bedrock for many working topologists. Topology -Dugundji-.pdf
His section on contains the famous exercise: "A topological space is T1 iff every singleton is closed." That is the warm-up . The final exercise in that section usually takes an hour. Verdict: Keep it on your hard drive The Dugundji PDF is not a beach read. It is a reference weapon. I keep it open on my second monitor whenever I encounter a weird statement about "perfectly normal spaces" or "fiber bundles." Recently, I managed to get my hands on