Cosmology: The Structure and Evolution of the Universe

From the reviews:"It survives the pitfalls of this fashion-conscious era by pursuing a rigorously independent-minded attitude to contemporary ideas. The level is introductory undergraduate, with rather little mathematics but a strong physical basis....The second part, on general relativity and cosmology, provides a good account of modern theoretical ideas, from rotating black holes to Grand Unified Theories and inflation. The third part is an excellent and profound discussion of the fundamental problems of cosmology. For anyone with a philosophical turn of mind this section alone makes the book essential reading." Nature