I also remember taking a class on vector calculus from the same author... which detoured through rudimentary manifold theory and differential forms, and ended with a final week on de Rham cohomology and the Mayer-Vietoris theorem (on vector spaces, to be fair, and not modules in general.)
(And is a very fine K-theorist, too, if I say so myself.)
The first author is well known for teaching "wild ride" undergraduate classes where he compensates by spending a lot of time on their pedagogy.
He once taught an open to all freshman knot theory elective:
https://people.reed.edu/~ormsbyk/138/
I also remember taking a class on vector calculus from the same author... which detoured through rudimentary manifold theory and differential forms, and ended with a final week on de Rham cohomology and the Mayer-Vietoris theorem (on vector spaces, to be fair, and not modules in general.)
(And is a very fine K-theorist, too, if I say so myself.)
So, just from the contents ... does anything make this especially different from other discrete math books?