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Can anyone describe the differences between James Stewarts's Calculus and Calculus: Concepts and Context?

They appear to be nearly identical, though slightly arranged versions of exactly the same material, packaged differently (the former aimed down at the US-style high-school textbook market, and the latter aimed up a bit, perhaps at an older audience).

Note: I'm NOT asking for rants about the textbook business, I'm just trying to get an answer to the question asked, viz., a summary of the differences between the two texts.

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I've converted this to CW: the question phrasing "Can anyone explain the difference" is likely to lead to subjective description and evaluation. I also feel that this question may be a tad on the "too localised" side. – Willie Wong♦ Jul 25 '11 at 23:40
"Converted to CW"? – raxacoricofallapatorius Jul 26 '11 at 2:34
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Frankly speaking, all Stewart's Calculus books look pretty much the same to me (I've been teaching from them since 1994) but everyone has to make his living in some way, hasn't he? On the other hand, if someone challenges you to write a principally novel exposition of calculus, will you be able to do it? I won't. IMHO, the question a potential calculus textbook writer faces today is "Which book to write?" rather than "What book to write?" If you ask because you want to know which Stewart's textbook would be better to read, my advice would be to read Spivak. – fedja Jul 26 '11 at 2:45
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Innumerable authors write the same calculus text over and over again, with minor variations in the color of the figure on page 62, etc. But the days when it's a startlingly bold and brilliant move to put the mean value theorem in section 4.2 instead of section 4.1 are past. – Michael Hardy Jul 26 '11 at 14:43
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A personal anecdote: A friend of my parents was traveling in Europe, and, while in Paris, saw an old calculus book, written in French, which he purchased an brought home to me. As I recall, the book was written circa 1870. Other than that, the book looked remarkably like almost any other calculus book I have ever used, same topics, roughly the same order. So, I guess things haven't changed much over the years. – Chris Leary Sep 21 '11 at 16:42
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1 Answer

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According to the preface to Calculus: Concepts and Context (4e), Calculus provides "fuller coverage of traditional calculus topics"; while according to Calculus (6e), Calculus: Concepts and Context "emphasizes conceptual understandings" with coverage that is "not encyclopedic and the material on transcendental functions and on parametric equations is woven throughout the book".

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