The need for improved mathematics education at the high school and college levels has never been more apparent than in the 1990s. As early as the 1960s, I. M. Gel'fand and his colleagues in the USSR thought hard about this same question and developed a style for presenting basic mathematics in a clear and simple form that engaged the curiosity and intellectual interest of thousands of high school and college students. These same ideas, this same content, unchanged by over thirty years of experience and mathematical development, are available in the present books to any student who is willing to read, to be stimulated and to learn. "The Method of Coordinates" is a way of transferring geometric images into formulas, a method for describing pictures by numbers and letters denoting constants and variables. It is fundamental to the study of calculus and other mathematical topics. Teachers of mathematics will find here a fresh understanding of the subject and a valuable path to the training of students in mathematical concepts and skills.