From the reviews of the previous editions ".... The book is a first class textbook and seems to be indispensable for everybody who has to teach combinatorial optimization. It is very helpful for students, teachers, and researchers in this area. The author finds a striking synthesis of nice and interesting mathematical results and practical applications. ... the author pays much attention to the inclusion of well-chosen exercises. The reader does not remain helpless; solutions or at least hints are given in the appendix. Except for some small basic mathematical and algorithmic knowledge the book is self-contained. ..." K.Engel, Mathematical Reviews 2002 The substantial development effort of this text, involving multiple editions and trailing in the context of various workshops, university courses and seminar series, clearly shows through in this new edition with its clear writing, good organisation, comprehensive coverage of essential theory, and well-chosen applications. The proofs of important results and the representation of key algorithms in a Pascal-like notation allow this book to be used in a high-level undergraduate or low-level graduate course on graph theory, combinatorial optimization or computer science algorithms. The well-worked solutions to exercises are a real bonus for self study by students. The book is highly recommended. P .B. Gibbons, Zentralblatt für Mathematik 1061, 2005 The third edition of this standard textbook contains additional material: two new application sections (on graphical codes and their decoding) and about two dozen further exercises (with solutions, as throughout the text). Moreover, recent developments have been discussed and referenced, in particular for the travelling salesman problem. The presentation has been improved in many places (for instance, in the chapters on shortest paths and on colorings), and a number of proofs have been reorganized, making them more precise or more transparent.