Algebra What are the best books for understanding universal algebra?

[bacte2013]

What are good books in universal algebra, given that I have a background in Herstein (Topics in Algebra), Hubbard/Hubbard, Engelking (Topology), and Dugundji (Topology)? I am currently reading Hungerford, and I found a field called universal algebra while searching internet for some concepts. Is universal algebra basically "algebra done right"?

 

[jedishrfu]

Perhaps this will help define it better:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_algebra

 

[micromass]

Is universal algebra basically "algebra done right"?

No, it's not.

Universal algebra has pretty much the same goals as category theory, but a bit more modest. Basically, universal algebra attempts to give a unifying structure for all algebraic structures. The need for this comes from recognizing that both rings, vector spaces and groups have their own version of the isomorphism theorems. One of the goals of universal algebra is to give a general definition of an algebraic object and to prove the most general possible isomorphism theorems.

The best book in this field is probably the free book by Burris and Sankappanavar: http://www.math.hawaii.edu/~ralph/Classes/619/univ-algebra.pdf