From the reviews of the first edition:
Professor Back has written a superb book on advanced derivatives. The book provides wonderfully clear explanations without sacrificing mathematical accuracy. I highly recommend this book for everyone who wants to understand more about this fascinating and important area.
(Mark Broadie, Columbia University, New York)
Professor Kerry Back's book fills a void in the derivative literature by providing an excellent and much needed book for a second course in derivatives. The clear presentation and the choice of VBA as the software tool makes this a perfect textbook for such a course. Using VBA via excel is an excellent choice as it exhibits an open source environment that is readily available for users.
(Eliezer Z. Prisman, York University, Toronto)
This book deals with pricing and hedging financial derivatives. ... Computational methods are introduced and the text contains the Excel VBA routines corresponding to the formulas and procedures described in the book. This is valuable since computer simulation can help readers understand the theory. ... The book under review succeeds in presenting intuitively advanced derivative modelling ... . In my opinion, it provides a useful bridge between introductory books and the more advanced literature. (Benjamin Jourdain, Mathematical Reviews, Issue 2006 h)
This book contains a practical introduction to the mathematics of financial engineering. It can serve as an excellent bridge between the introductory books on derivative securities and those that provide advanced mathematical treatments. ... the book presents a very wide spectrum of the problems and methods concerned with pricing and hedging derivatives in a quite accessible way. ... it can be strongly recommended not only to be used as a course but also for those wishing to train themselves in this field. (Malgorzata Doman, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1085, 2006)
The strength of this book is in its clarity in exposition of the complex ... modern financial mathematics. The book is self-contained, and a student can learn the key elements of the main toolkits in financial engineering ... . Further, the book provides useful exercises and VBA programs so that the students can simulate the results ... . I recommend the book to an MBA program ... . The book could also be used in some master programs in financial engineering and mathematical finance. (Thomas S. Y. Ho, SIAM Review, Vol. 48 (3), 2006)
