Networks: A Very Short Introduction

The book walks you through the various networks, the Internet, food webs (they're not chains as you would have told before), molecular networks, sexual partners and airline networks, among many. There are a bunch of tidbits of information throughout the book to keep you entertained but you won't get lost in the myriads of networks quoted in the book as the author uses these fun facts about networks effectively to paint the overall road map of what network theory is and where it is headed.There are two things I particularly liked about the book. The first thing is that it provides us with an alternative way to understand familiar natural or social phenomena. Without network structures in mind, it is hard to understand why extinction of one species leads to extinction of other ostensibly unrelated species, or why African Americans are 1.3 times more likely to contract STI's than white counterparts. It is important to recognize the part network plays if we are to take any policy interventions to prevent extinction or spread of viruses, or else we can waste tons of resources for nothing. We can't see the forest for the trees.The second thing is that author direct us to the idea of centrality without getting too technical. The number of links is one way to measure how important (or central) the node is, but it is just one way to do so. There are a few other useful ways to gauge the centrality and the authors explain what these are and how these can explain the phenomena that cannot be explained by a simple degree. My favorite example in the book was Anchorage airport, whose links are not that many but important nonetheless on the other metric (I'll stop right here because I don't want to spoil the surprise for you). Once again, the book makes us realize that we need to acknowledge not just the number of links each node has but also *how* it is placed in the network to detect where the choke point is or to construct robust networks.A little drawback of the book is the lack of graphs. I was hoping to see more graphical representations. The author warns of the use of a graph to represent certain types of networks and I totally agree. But then there are occasions when a picture is worth a thousand words, and it is especially true when your subject is *graph* theory. For example, the explanation of transitivity could use a little graph, with just three nodes, which would have saved a lot of explanations. This is definitely not a deal breaker though.Overall, an entertaining and easy-to-read introductory book on network.

This is a short book of some 120 pages in length, but packed within it are the essentials for understanding the fundamental concepts of networks as they exist in nature and in society. Networks of the architecture by which living things are able to thrive and grow beyond accumulations of single cell animals. On my Facebook page, I stated that this book was one of the best reading and learning experiences that I've had over the years, and I spent just over two hours reading the book from cover to cover! This little book will appeal to those still in high school through people with graduate degrees, and yet the language is accessible and easily understood. As the title series states, this is a Very Short Introduction into a complex subject, and of course the format of the necessity leaves a great deal out, mostly the mathematics. That is all to the good, because it forces readers, and their peers, and perhaps their intended readers, to step away from their comfort zone, to describe networking in how it begins, how it works, and one accomplishes, and well-crafted sentences, suitably punctuated. We find networks stretching from brain tissue to Facebook and beyond, and their commonalities in their processes and characteristics that we need to know about. Making the fundamentals of network existence accessible to anyone willing to take the time and devote the effort needed, and it's not all that much, will inure substantial benefits to readers, even those knowing nothing about the biological and mathematical basis for networks, simply through the process of identifying and explaining things that they already know and use in their daily lives. Coming away that much more well-informed is enough to improve anyone's day.

This is a good introduction to network analysis. It describes the relevant concepts, presents some bits of its historical development and provides numerous examples of networks in the natural and social worlds. It does not use any mathematical formulation, which is good for beginners without a strong technical background, but makes it difficult to precisely understand some concepts. The main drawback of the book is the lack of a "roadmap" in the beginning. Each chapter is packed with very intersting information, but it is hard to figure out a logical sequence in which the main themes of the chapters are linked. As a result, at some point the reader may be lost in the details of a chapter without a clear understanding of how it relates to the whole survey. The book could greatly benefit from a "roadmap" in the introduction.

The book provides a thorough and engaging overview of networks, with easily understood descriptions of many of the computations used in network analysis. The authors include references to other materials for readers seeking more detailed information on the mathematics and other aspects. The writing quality of this book is very good.

As with most of the Very Short Introduction books in the Oxford University Press series, it works well as a briefing. In this case, a good overview on networking concepts.

A good short introduction to the issue of networks. It really does cover the breadth of network types. Would love to have one focused on social networks, specifically.

This book is a basic guide for grasping the structure, usefulness and presentation of relationships of things and factors.

This is by far the best introductory book on the subject that I could find. I read three other books written by experts in the field: "Linked" by Barabasi, "Connected" by Christakis and found both to be shallow; also "Understanding Social Networks" by Kadushin which is too dense. I highly recomend this book for its accessibility, clarity, substance and breadth of coverage.

I bought this book to read before I studied this subject at university (well, its applications in Chemistry).Long story short, it gives someone who has never studied graph theory or its applications (like myself), an appreciation for the subject's ubiquity to modern life and mathematical modeling. From STEM fields (e.g. biology) to soft sciences (e.g. sociology), there are many disciplines that will benefit from the concepts explored in this book (not just computer science!).Examples are given for the concepts explored so that the reader is never left wondering about the usefulness of the material discussed. The diagrams, though few, are used to good effect.NB. for anyone wondering, this book does not mention much about the application to Chemistry. This book does provide a good amount of background reading for a wide range of applications so that you appreciate the methods themselves rather than anything deeply numerical. So basically, no difficult maths or equations and no difficult science!

I know nothing about mathmatics, and didn't have to for this book to educate me on what networks mean and how they can be used to model a range of important phenomenon. It only introduces the topic (as the title suggests) and does not provide any quantitative detail but it doesn't have to for it's purpose. Some nice illustrations help convey it's message without numbers. A lot of information is packed into a small number of pages. It inspired me to buy a longer, more mathmatically heavy book on the topic.

An extremely useful book with references to the important works

As an introduction to subjects this series of book sis excellent.

Great