From the reviews of the 2nd edition The substantial development effort of this text clearly shows through in this new edition with its clear writing, good organisation, comprehensive coverage of essential theory, and well-chosen applications. The proofs of important results and the representation of key algorithms in a Pascal-like notation allow this book to be used in a high-level undergraduate or low-level graduate course on graph theory, combinatorial optimization or computer science algorithms. The well-worked solutions to exercises are a real bonus for self study by students. The book is highly recommended. Zentralblatt fur Mathematik 2005The third edition of this standard textbook contains additional material: two new application sections (on graphical codes and their decoding) and about two dozen further exercises (with solutions, as throughout the text). Moreover, recent developments have been discussed and referenced, in particular for the travelling salesman problem. The presentation has been improved in many places (for instance, in the chapters on shortest paths and on colorings), and a number of proofs have been reorganized, making them more precise or more transparent.