Advanced beginners textbook on Lie theory from a geometric viewpoint

Walter A. Poor's text, "Differential Geometric Structures" hits all the points you mentioned above in various amounts of detail. Lie groups and homogeneous spaces are discussed in Chapter 6, symplectic geometry in Chapter 8, principal bundles and spin geometry in Chapter 9, symmetric spaces in Chapter 7, and holonomy in a variety of places throughout. The point of view of the whole book is to think of "geometric structures" broadly as a notion of parallel transport of information along curves. It's also a Dover book, so you can get it on Amazon for less than $20, likely including shipping.

However, it's not a book on Lie theory per se. For a geometric introduction to Lie theory, maybe try Wulf Rossmann's, "Lie Groups: An Introduction Through Linear Groups" or John Stillwell's, "Naive Lie Theory." Stillwell's book in particular takes a hands-on geometric approach, including pictures and explicit calculations. You should be able to see the contents and read the introductions to both books on Amazon if you want a feel for whether these would be good starting points for you.


Relates issues:

  • Exponential of a function times derivative
  • How to properly apply the Lie Series
  • How to derive these Lie Series formulas
Don't know how to combine "advanced" and "beginners" textbook in the first place; because I think that's more or less a contradictio in terminis. But anyway, my absolute favorite is the following one, with a lot of geometry contained in it indeed. But, what's more important, written by someone who has been close to the founder of Lie group theory himself:

  • Sophus Lie, Vorlesungen über Differentialgleichungen mit bekannten Infinitesimalen Transformationen, bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Dr. Georg Wilhelm Scheffers,
    Leipzig (1891). Availability: Amazon.
It's written in German. Don't know if that may be called "unfortunately".

enter image description here


You may enjoy the following reference as I do:

"Structure and Geometry of Lie Groups" by Joachim Hilgert and Karl-Hermann Neeb, Springer Monographs in Mathematics, 2012.