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Summary
Proofs and Confirmations The Story of the Alternating Sign Matrix Conjecture. David M. Bressoud. Cambridge University Press, New York, and Mathematical Association of America, Washington, DC, 1999. 290 pp. $74.95. ISBN 0-521-66170-6. Paper, $29.95. ISBN 0-521-66646-5.
Bressoud offers an account of the search for a proof of an early 1980s conjecture on objects that generalize permutation matrices. Although this recent development in algebraic combinatorics can seem quite impenetrable, he succeeds in making it clear and provides an informative illustration of how mathematical research progresses.