CP violation was first observed in 1964, but only in 1999 did we gain much greater experimental insight. Direct CP violation finally appeared in the form of ε′/ε in the K system. Indirect CP violation in B → J/Ψ Ks decay, the raison d'être for construction of e+e- B factories, was first sniffed out at the proton-antiproton collider. The asymmetric B factories — BABAR at SLAC and BELLE at KEK — were completed, while the symmetric B factory at Cornell was upgraded to CLEO-III. It seems that everyone is positioning himself for the great competition on “B Physics and CP Violation”, racing to unravel the Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix, especially the size and origin of CP phases. The change of millennium provides a dramatic backdrop.To have intensive discussions at the technical level, to create broader interest in the subject, and to maximize interaction between experimenters and theorists, this book starts with the status of B factories: accelerator, detector and physics analysis. Following an overview of B physics and the CKM matrix, it delves into the details of lifetime, spectroscopy and decays, with even more specialized discussions on rare decays, direct and indirect CP violation, factorization and final state interactions, determination of unitarity phases, etc. Topics on ε′/ε, rare K decay, charm and hyperon systems, and various T, CP and CPT tests are also discussed at length. The book closes with the outlook for hadron machines and the prospects for new physics. A special feature is that there are two summary talks, one on experiment and the other on theory. The book is further augmented by two dozen excellent contributed talks.

This proceedings contains the talks delivered at the plenary and parallel sessions. Topics covered include e⁺e⁻ Physics at Z0, String Theory and Theory of Extended Objects, High Energy pp Physics, Non-Accelerator Particle Physics, Conformal Field Theory, e⁺e⁻ Physics below Z⁰, Structure Functions and Deep Inelastic Scattering, Neutrino Physics, Recent Developments in 2-Dimensional Gravity, Lattice Gauge Theory and Computer Simulations, CP Violation , Accelerator Physics, Cosmology and Particle Physics, Interface Between Particle and Condensed Matter Physics, Detector R&D, and Astroparticle Physics.

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The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics has withstood thus far every attempt by experimentalists to show that it does not describe data. We discuss the SM in some detail, focusing on the mechanism of fermion mixing, which represents one of its most intriguing aspects. We discuss how this mechanism can be tested in b-quark decays, and how b decays can be used to extract information on physics beyond the SM. We review experimental techniques in b physics, focusing on recent results and highlighting future prospects. Particular attention is devoted to recent results from b decays into a hadron, a lepton and an anti-lepton, that show discrepancies with the SM predictions — the so-called B-physics anomalies — whose statistical significance has been increasing steadily. We discuss these experiments in a detailed manner, and also provide theoretical interpretation of these results in terms of physics beyond the SM.