The Zeroth Book of Graph Theory

Marking 94 years since its first appearance, this book provides an annotated translation of Sainte-Lague's seminal monograph Les reseaux (ou graphes), drawing attention to its fundamental principles and ideas. Sainte-Lague's 1926 monograph appeared only in French, but in the 1990s H. Gropp published a number of English papers describing several aspects of the book. He expressed his hope that an English translation might sometime be available to the mathematics community. In the 10 years following the appearance of Les reseaux (ou graphes), the development of graph theory continued, culminating in the publication of the first full book on the theory of finite and infinite graphs in 1936 by Denes Koenig. This remained the only well-known text until Claude Berge's 1958 book on the theory and applications of graphs. By 1960, graph theory had emerged as a significant mathematical discipline of its own. This book will be of interest to graph theorists and mathematical historians.