TITLE: Hamel bases without (too much) axiomatic set theory
QUESTION [8 upvotes]: Hamel bases have cropped up on the periphery of my mathematical interests a few times over my mathematical career, but I have never found the time or had a real need to look into them at any depth. Most of what I know comes from the 1966 book "A First Course in Functional Analysis" by M. Davies, in which he uses them to prove the existence of discontinuous solutions of the functional equation $f(x+y) = f(x) + f(y)$.
My questions/queries:

Is it possible to talk (meaningfully) about Hamel bases without invoking the axiom of choice?
am I correct in my primitive, intuition-led understanding: "we can't explicitly exhibit a Hamel basis because that would be "equivalent" (in some obscure way that I cannot define precisely) to explicitly exhibiting a "choice function"?
can anyone give me a nice reference where an old-fashioned analyst (well, old, at least) could read up on such matters without getting too heavily involved in axiomatic set theory or foundations of maths texts?

REPLY [2 votes]: To anyone finding this question now, Beriashvili-Schindler-Wu-Yu have recently found a model in which choice fails but which has a Hamel basis: http://wwwmath.uni-muenster.de/u/rds/hamel_basis.pdf.