Ideal book to learn Quantum Field Theory

[Higgs137]

I'm an undergraduate with interest in theoretical particle physics. No course available in QFT. I have background in particle physics, quantum physics and relativity. Want to start learning it before going for M.Sc
I've seen books like Mandl and Shaw, Landau and Lifshitz in university library.
I've heard that it is better to learn such subject from up to date sources.
Can you suggest me some books.

[niklaus]

There is probably no such thing as the ideal qft book, your best bet is to get a bunch of them at the library and see which works for you... The most popular choice appears to be Peskin & Schroeder. Another one you might want to look into is Zee, qft in a nutshell, which is more conversational in tone and focuses more on the big picture than on how to do calculations.

There are a bunch of old threads here on qft textbooks, use the search function!

[yenchin]

By the way there is a new revised edition of Mandl and Shaw.

[Daverz]

For starters, I'd suggest Aitchison & Hey:

http://www.amazon.com/Gauge-Theories-Particle-Physics-Third/dp/0750308648/

And David Tong's online notes:

http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/qft.html

There are even videos.

[yenchin]

I agree that David Tong's notes are great. Also, you may want to take a look at these lists: From Griffiths to Peskin: a literature review for beginners (http://fliptomato.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/from-griffiths-to-peskin-a-lit-review-for-beginners/).

[xepma]

I agree with the advice on David Tong's notes in conjunction with his lecture series.

I would advice against Peskin and Schroeder, because of its size. I also advice against Zee as a first read, because, well.. it doesn't really teach you much about the computational side. (sorry niklaus!)