Recent developments are covered

Contains over 100 figures and 250 exercises

Includes complete proofs

From the reviews:

The book under review constitutes a self-contained introduction to the use of combinatorial methods in commutative algebra. ... Concrete calculations and examples are used to introduce and develop concepts. Numerous exercises provide the opportunity to work through the material and end of chapter notes comment on the history and development of the subject. The authors have provided us with a useful reference and an effective text book. (R. J. Shank, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1090 (16), 2006)

Monomial Ideals.- Squarefree monomial ideals.- Borel-fixed monomial ideals.- Three-dimensional staircases.- Cellular resolutions.- Alexander duality.- Generic monomial ideals.- Toric Algebra.- Semigroup rings.- Multigraded polynomial rings.- Syzygies of lattice ideals.- Toric varieties.- Irreducible and injective resolutions.- Ehrhart polynomials.- Local cohomology.- Determinants.- Plucker coordinates.- Matrix Schubert varieties.- Antidiagonal initial ideals.- Minors in matrix products.- Hilbert schemes of points.