One of the major discoveries of the past two decades in algebraic geometry is the realization that the theory of minimal models of surfaces can be generalized to higher dimensional varieties. This generalization, called the minimal model program, or Mori's program, has developed into a powerful tool with applications to diverse questions in algebraic geometry and beyond. This book provides the first comprehensive introduction to the circle of ideas developed around the program, the prerequisites being only a basic knowledge of algebraic geometry. It will be of great interest to graduate students and researchers working in algebraic geometry and related fields.

The aim of this book is to introduce the reader to the geometric theory of algebraic varieties, in particular to the birational geometry of algebraic varieties. This volume grew out of the author's book in Japanese published in 3 volumes by Iwanami, Tokyo, in 1977. While writing this English version, the author has tried to rearrange and rewrite the original material so that even beginners can read it easily without referring to other books, such as textbooks on commutative algebra. The reader is only expected to know the definition of Noetherin rings and the statement of the Hilbert basis theorem. The new chapters 1, 2, and 10 have been expanded. In particular, the exposition of D-dimension theory, although shorter, is more complete than in the old version. However, to keep the book of manageable size, the latter parts of Chapters 6, 9, and 11 have been removed. I thank Mr. A. Sevenster for encouraging me to write this new version, and Professors K. K. Kubota in Kentucky and P. M. H. Wilson in Cam bridge for their careful and critical reading of the English manuscripts and typescripts. I held seminars based on the material in this book at The University of Tokyo, where a large number of valuable comments and suggestions were given by students Iwamiya, Kawamata, Norimatsu, Tobita, Tsushima, Maeda, Sakamoto, Tsunoda, Chou, Fujiwara, Suzuki, and Matsuda.

This volume collects contributions from speakers at the INdAM Workshop “Birational Geometry and Moduli Spaces”, which was held in Rome on 11–15 June 2018. The workshop was devoted to the interplay between birational geometry and moduli spaces and the contributions of the volume reflect the same idea, focusing on both these areas and their interaction. In particular, the book includes both surveys and original papers on irreducible holomorphic symplectic manifolds, Severi varieties, degenerations of Calabi-Yau varieties, uniruled threefolds, toric Fano threefolds, mirror symmetry, canonical bundle formula, the Lefschetz principle, birational transformations, and deformations of diagrams of algebras. The intention is to disseminate the knowledge of advanced results and key techniques used to solve open problems. The book is intended for all advanced graduate students and researchers interested in the new research frontiers of birational geometry and moduli spaces.

The main focus of this volume is on the problem of describing the automorphism groups of affine and projective varieties, a classical subject in algebraic geometry where, in both cases, the automorphism group is often infinite dimensional. The collection covers a wide range of topics and is intended for researchers in the fields of classical algebraic geometry and birational geometry (Cremona groups) as well as affine geometry with an emphasis on algebraic group actions and automorphism groups. It presents original research and surveys and provides a valuable overview of the current state of the art in these topics. Bringing together specialists from projective, birational algebraic geometry and affine and complex algebraic geometry, including Mori theory and algebraic group actions, this book is the result of ensuing talks and discussions from the conference “Groups of Automorphisms in Birational and Affine Geometry” held in October 2012, at the CIRM, Levico Terme, Italy. The talks at the conference highlighted the close connections between the above-mentioned areas and promoted the exchange of knowledge and methods from adjacent fields.

​​​​This book features recent developments in a rapidly growing area at the interface of higher-dimensional birational geometry and arithmetic geometry. It focuses on the geometry of spaces of rational curves, with an emphasis on applications to arithmetic questions. Classically, arithmetic is the study of rational or integral solutions of diophantine equations and geometry is the study of lines and conics. From the modern standpoint, arithmetic is the study of rational and integral points on algebraic varieties over nonclosed fields. A major insight of the 20th century was that arithmetic properties of an algebraic variety are tightly linked to the geometry of rational curves on the variety and how they vary in families. This collection of solicited survey and research papers is intended to serve as an introduction for graduate students and researchers interested in entering the field, and as a source of reference for experts working on related problems. Topics that will be addressed include: birational properties such as rationality, unirationality, and rational connectedness, existence of rational curves in prescribed homology classes, cones of rational curves on rationally connected and Calabi-Yau varieties, as well as related questions within the framework of the Minimal Model Program.

An introduction to the theory of algebraic functions on varieties from a sheaf theoretic standpoint.

An introduction to abstract algebraic geometry, with the only prerequisites being results from commutative algebra, which are stated as needed, and some elementary topology. More than 400 exercises distributed throughout the book offer specific examples as well as more specialised topics not treated in the main text, while three appendices present brief accounts of some areas of current research. This book can thus be used as textbook for an introductory course in algebraic geometry following a basic graduate course in algebra. Robin Hartshorne studied algebraic geometry with Oscar Zariski and David Mumford at Harvard, and with J.-P. Serre and A. Grothendieck in Paris. He is the author of "Residues and Duality", "Foundations of Projective Geometry", "Ample Subvarieties of Algebraic Varieties", and numerous research titles.

Originating from the School on Birational Geometry of Hypersurfaces, this volume focuses on the notion of (stable) rationality of projective varieties and, more specifically, hypersurfaces in projective spaces, and provides a large number of open questions, techniques and spectacular results. The aim of the school was to shed light on this vast area of research by concentrating on two main aspects: (1) Approaches focusing on (stable) rationality using deformation theory and Chow-theoretic tools like decomposition of the diagonal; (2) The connection between K3 surfaces, hyperkähler geometry and cubic fourfolds, which has both a Hodge-theoretic and a homological side. Featuring the beautiful lectures given at the school by Jean-Louis Colliot-Thélène, Daniel Huybrechts, Emanuele Macrì, and Claire Voisin, the volume also includes additional notes by János Kollár and an appendix by Andreas Hochenegger.

This book is an introduction to singularities for graduate students and researchers. It is said that algebraic geometry originated in the seventeenth century with the famous work Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences by Descartes. In that book he introduced coordinates to the study of geometry. After its publication, research on algebraic varieties developed steadily. Many beautiful results emerged in mathematicians’ works. Most of them were about non-singular varieties. Singularities were considered “bad” objects that interfered with knowledge of the structure of an algebraic variety. In the past three decades, however, it has become clear that singularities are necessary for us to have a good description of the framework of varieties. For example, it is impossible to formulate minimal model theory for higher-dimensional cases without singularities. Another example is that the moduli spaces of varieties have natural compactification, the boundaries of which correspond to singular varieties. A remarkable fact is that the study of singularities is developing and people are beginning to see that singularities are interesting and can be handled by human beings. This book is a handy introduction to singularities for anyone interested in singularities. The focus is on an isolated singularity in an algebraic variety. After preparation of varieties, sheaves, and homological algebra, some known results about 2-dim ensional isolated singularities are introduced. Then a classification of higher-dimensional isolated singularities is shown according to plurigenera and the behavior of singularities under a deformation is studied.