Basic Structures of Modern Algebra

This book has developed from a series of lectures which were given by the author in mechanics-mathematics department of the Moscow State University. In 1981 the course "Additional chapters in algebra" replaced the course "Gen­ eral algebra" which was founded by A. G. Kurosh (1908-1971), professor and head of the department of higher algebra for a period of several decades. The material of this course formed the basis of A. G. Kurosh's well-known book "Lectures on general algebra" (Moscow,1962;