Although there is no lack of other books on this subject, even with the same title,

the appearance of this new one is fully justified on at least two grounds: its
approach makes full use of modern mathematical concepts and terminology of
considerable sophistication and abstraction, going well beyond the traditional
presentation of the subject; and, at the same time, the resulting enhancement of
mathematical abstractness is counterbalanced by a constant appeal to geometrical
and physical considerations, presented in the main text and in numerous problems
and exercises.

In terms of mathematical approach, the text is dominated by two central ideas: the
theorem on rectifiability of a vector field (which is equivalent to the usual theorems
on existence, uniqueness, and differentiability of solutions) and the theory of oneparameter groups of linear transformations (equivalent to the theory of linear
autonomous systems). The book also develops whole congeries of fundamental
conceptslike phase space and phase flows, smooth manifolds and tangent
bundles,