This book consists essentially of notes which were written for an Advanced Course on Classifying Spaces and Cohomology of Groups. The course took place at the Centre de Recerca Mathematica (CRM) in Bellaterra from May 27 to June 2, 1998 and was part of an emphasis semester on Algebraic Topology. It consisted of two parallel series of 6 lectures of 90 minutes each and was intended as an introduction to new homotopy theoretic methods in group cohomology. The first part of the book is concerned with methods of decomposing the classifying space of a finite group into pieces made of classifying spaces of appropriate subgroups. Such decompositions have been used with great success in the last 10-15 years in the homotopy theory of classifying spaces of compact Lie groups and p-compact groups in the sense of Dwyer and Wilkerson. For simplicity the emphasis here is on finite groups and on homological properties of various decompositions known as centralizer resp. normalizer resp. subgroup decomposition. A unified treatment of the various decompositions is given and the relations between them are explored. This is preceeded by a detailed discussion of basic notions such as classifying spaces, simplicial complexes and homotopy colimits.

This book is the result of a conference held to examine developments in homotopy theory in honor of Samuel Gitler in July 1993 (Cocoyoc, Mexico). It includes several research papers and three expository papers on various topics in homotopy theory. The research papers discuss the following: BL application of homotopy theory to group theory BL fiber bundle theory BL homotopy theory The expository papers consider the following topics: BL the Atiyah-Jones conjecture (by C. Boyer) BL classifying spaces of finite groups (by J. Martino) BL instanton moduli spaces (by J. Milgram) Homotopy Theory and Its Applications offers a distinctive account of how homotopy theoretic methods can be applied to a variety of interesting problems.

This volume presents the proceedings from the AMS-IMS-SIAM Summer Research Conference on Homotopy Methods in Algebraic Topology held at the University of Colorado (Boulder). The conference coincided with the sixtieth birthday of J. Peter May. An article is included reflecting his wide-ranging and influential contributions to the subject area. Other articles in the book discuss the ordinary, elliptic and real-oriented Adams spectral sequences, mapping class groups, configuration spaces, extended powers, operads, the telescope conjecture, $p$-compact groups, algebraic K theory, stable and unstable splittings, the calculus of functors, the $E_{\infty}$ tensor product, and equivariant cohomology theories. The book offers a compendious source on modern aspects of homotopy theoretic methods in many algebraic settings.

Some Historical Background This book deals with the cohomology of groups, particularly finite ones. Historically, the subject has been one of significant interaction between algebra and topology and has directly led to the creation of such important areas of mathematics as homo logical algebra and algebraic K-theory. It arose primarily in the 1920's and 1930's independently in number theory and topology. In topology the main focus was on the work ofH. Hopf, but B. Eckmann, S. Eilenberg, and S. MacLane (among others) made significant contributions. The main thrust of the early work here was to try to understand the meanings of the low dimensional homology groups of a space X. For example, if the universal cover of X was three connected, it was known that H2(X; A. ) depends only on the fundamental group of X. Group cohomology initially appeared to explain this dependence. In number theory, group cohomology arose as a natural device for describing the main theorems of class field theory and, in particular, for describing and analyzing the Brauer group of a field. It also arose naturally in the study of group extensions, N

Cohomology operations are at the center of a major area of activity in algebraic topology. This treatment explores the single most important variety of operations, the Steenrod squares. It constructs these operations, proves their major properties, and provides numerous applications, including several different techniques of homotopy theory useful for computation. 1968 edition.

After the pioneering work of Brauer in the middle of the 20th century in the area of the representation theory of groups, many entirely new developments have taken place and the field has grown into a very large field of study. This progress, and the remaining open problems (e.g., the conjectures of Alterin, Dade, Broué, James, etc.) have ensured that group representation theory remains a lively area of research. In this book, the leading researchers in the field contribute a chapter in their field of specialty, namely: Broué (Finite reductive groups and spetses); Carlson (Cohomology and representations of finite groups); Geck (Representations of Hecke algebras); Seitz (Topics in algebraic groups); Kessar and Linckelmann (Fusion systems and blocks); Serre (On finite subgroups of Lie groups); Thévenaz (The classification of endo-permutaion modules); and Webb (Representations and cohomology of categories).

This book consists of an expanded set of lectures on algebraic aspects of quantum groups. It particularly concentrates on quantized coordinate rings of algebraic groups and spaces and on quantized enveloping algebras of semisimple Lie algebras. Large parts of the material are developed in full textbook style, featuring many examples and numerous exercises; other portions are discussed with sketches of proofs, while still other material is quoted without proof.

This volume introduces equivariant homotopy, homology, and cohomology theory, along with various related topics in modern algebraic topology. It explains the main ideas behind some of the most striking recent advances in the subject. The works begins with a development of the equivariant algebraic topology of spaces culminating in a discussion of the Sullivan conjecture that emphasizes its relationship with classical Smith theory. The book then introduces equivariant stable homotopy theory, the equivariant stable homotopy category, and the most important examples of equivariant cohomology theories. The basic machinery that is needed to make serious use of equivariant stable homotopy theory is presented next, along with discussions of the Segal conjecture and generalized Tate cohomology. Finally, the book gives an introduction to "brave new algebra", the study of point-set level algebraic structures on spectra and its equivariant applications. Emphasis is placed on equivariant complex cobordism, and related results on that topic are presented in detail.

As part of its series of Emphasis Years in Mathematics, Northwestern University hosted an International Conference on Algebraic Topology. The purpose of the conference was to develop new connections between homotopy theory and other areas of mathematics. This proceedings volume grew out of that event. Topics discussed include algebraic geometry, cohomology of groups, algebraic $K$-theory, and $\mathbb{A 1$ homotopy theory. Among the contributors to the volume were Alejandro Adem,Ralph L. Cohen, Jean-Louis Loday, and many others. The book is suitable for graduate students and research mathematicians interested in homotopy theory and its relationship to other areas of mathematics.

From the reviews: "This is an excellent exposition about abelian Reidemeister torsions for three-manifolds." —Zentralblatt Math "This monograph contains a wealth of information many topologists will find very handy. ...Many of the new points of view pioneered by Turaev are gradually becoming mainstream and are spreading beyond the pure topology world. This monograph is a timely and very useful addition to the scientific literature." —Mathematical Reviews