Introductory references for Morse theory In view of my master's thesis, I have to learn the basics of Morse theory (defining the morse complex, showing that Morse homology is isomorphic to singular homology...) I have been told that Milnor's books about Morse theory and the h-cobordism theorem could be a good place to start looking. What are your opinions about these books? And what are possible alternatives?

Here is a list of books which I like (other than Milnor, of course):

* _Morse Theory and Floer Homology_ , Audin, Michèle, Damian, Mihai

* _An Introduction to Morse Theory (Translations of Mathematical Monographs, Vol. 208)_ , Yukio Matsumoto

* _An Invitation to Morse Theory_ , Nicolaescu, Liviu