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I am searching for a complete and comprehensive book for QFT. What is, in your opinion, a good one?

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I believe this must have been asked at least thrice already, in one form or another. Here they are (some of them for particle physics but there is obvious overlap): physics.stackexchange.com/questions/1267/… physics.stackexchange.com/questions/1847/jauch-piron-ludwig-qft physics.stackexchange.com/questions/312/… – Marek Apr 11 '11 at 16:31
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Not that I have any problem with your question but at the moment this is (at least) fourth similar one and all of them have somewhat different answers. We could perhaps benefit by merging them together. Or by other redaction work. Any thoughts? – Marek Apr 11 '11 at 16:38
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@Marek: QFT is somewhat different from particle physics so I think we can leave at least two versions of these questions open. But I do think some merging is in order. For now I'm going to close the earlier QFT book question as a duplicate of this one, and it may get merged later. – David Zaslavsky Apr 11 '11 at 18:10

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6 Answers

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Each book reflects the author's taste on this or that matter in QFT. It is better to have many books to have a comprehensive picture of the subject. If you are going to study QFT seriously, many "incomplete" books is better than one "complete" course.

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I strongly disagree with that, now that I am learning on my own. QFT equations are strongly dependent on the particular taste of every author. Equations are different if the author choices (+---) or (-+++), if he/she uses $\vert e \vert $ or $-\vert e \vert$ for the electron charge (see here), etc. I am having a hell every time I try to consult from different books. No, you cannot consult from many books until you have more or less done a complete course/book and have acquired a general picture. – Eduardo Guerras Valera Feb 25 at 22:33

Anthony Zee's book QFT in a Nutshell is remarkably complete, and yet rather small. It provides a good intro to the subject.

A complete, thorough and good book is Steven Weinberg's 3-volume opus on QFT. It is perhaps too complete for beginners.

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I would recommend Peskin and Schroeder book. Srendnicki book is also good for the starters.

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For a comprehensive, careful and reliable treatment of QFT, one can not do better than Steven Weinberg's three volume magnum opus "Quantum Field Theory" Cambridge Univ. Press.

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But rading it should probably be complemented by one making fewer demands on the reader. – Arnold Neumaier Mar 21 '12 at 11:02

I personally like Folland's Quantum Field Theory.

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