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Rating: 
Summary: An easy call
Review: Very simply: if you want to know a very great deal about topos theory, buy this book. I mean, seriously, if you plan to make real work on topos theory a part of your life, then grit your teeth and come up with the money. If you do not want to know a very great deal about it, do not buy this book. You can use it at the library as a reference. If you merely want a professional understanding of what topos theory is, then read Johnstone's earlier TOPOS THEORY. That far shorter book gives a better overview. My Amazon review of it discusses others on the subject. Most are more accessible than Johnstone's books and go more into particular aspects of the theory. This book is a reference on all the methods, and the latest results, in topos theory. If you want the definition of "split opfibration", it is here, along with some 80 pages of background, examples, and motivation. Johnstone does an heroic job of unifying the terminology and organizing the theorems. More than that, Johnstone has written down an expert, encyclopedic view of the subject today. It is rare for a top mathematical researcher to give so deep an account of their field. It is rare for anyone to even work out such an explicit, coherent, extensive account of the whole. Not everyone will agree with his view. Some would like to see much less of such logical topics as "allegories", others would like to see the logic more formalized from the start. But Johnstone builds a case for his choices: partly implicit in his success at explaining things this way, and partly by explicit reasons. If you want to know that much about the subject then you want to immerse yourself in this book.
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