TITLE: Prerequisites for Algebraic Topology
QUESTION [15 upvotes]: I'd like to self-study Munkres' Topology. I'm already comfortable with point-set topology, so the first part of the book will serve as a nice review with some new theorems every now and then. My main interest is the second part, Algebraic Topology. On that, the author says "we do assume familiarity with the elements of group theory."
What exactly are the elements of group theory that are needed? Is there a PDF or concise book that would provide me with the elements needed in order to study the second part in Munkres's book? (Please don't recommend tomes such as Dummit & Foote). Thanks.

REPLY [7 votes]: While Munkres is arguably self-contained, there are further topics (on top of the above mentioned) you'll soon run into:  
(1) Free Groups (abelian and not). 
(2) Commutator subgroups, and (from memory). 
(3) Centralizers. 
He also uses the 1st isomorphism theorem galore, and I think the others in exercises (which is contained I guess in mentioning quotient groups; but very key to being able to handle on the fly). The algebraic material you need to get comfortably through the first chapter on fundamental groups isn't hard. Once you hit SvK, I (also reading Munkres on my own) found myself at a considerably larger challenge considering my knowledge (also self-learned) of about 1 semester of group theory.
The books I used and quite liked are Armstrong, Groups and Symmetry; and Artin, Algebra.  I can recommend them both, but not compare them to the priorly mentioned ones. 
Good luck!