Shape theory, an extension of homotopy theory from the realm of CW-complexes to arbitrary spaces, was introduced by Borsuk 30 years ago and Mardesic contributed greatly to it. One expert says: "If we need a book in the field, this is it! It is thorough, careful and complete."

Shape theory is an extension of homotopy theory from the realm of CW-complexes to arbitrary spaces. Besides applications in topology, it has interesting applications in various other areas of mathematics, especially in dynamical systems and C*-algebras. Strong shape is a refinement of ordinary shape with distinct advantages over the latter. Strong homology generalizes Steenrod homology and is an invariant of strong shape. The book gives a detailed account based on approximation of spaces by polyhedra (ANR's) using the technique of inverse systems. It is intended for researchers and graduate students. Special care is devoted to motivation and bibliographic notes.

Topology, for many years, has been one of the most exciting and influential fields of research in modern mathematics. Although its origins may be traced back several hundred years, it was Poincaré who "gave topology wings" in a classic series of articles published around the turn of the century. While the earlier history, sometimes called the prehistory, is also considered, this volume is mainly concerned with the more recent history of topology, from Poincaré onwards.As will be seen from the list of contents the articles cover a wide range of topics. Some are more technical than others, but the reader without a great deal of technical knowledge should still find most of the articles accessible. Some are written by professional historians of mathematics, others by historically-minded mathematicians, who tend to have a different viewpoint.

The aim of this international conference the third of its type was to survey recent developments in Geometric Topology and Shape Theory with an emphasis on their interaction. The volume contains original research papers and carefully selected survey of currently active areas. The main topics and themes represented by the papers of this volume include decomposition theory, cell-like mappings and CE-equivalent compacta, covering dimension versus cohomological dimension, ANR's and LCn-compacta, homology manifolds, embeddings of continua into manifolds, complement theorems in shape theory, approximate fibrations and shape fibrations, fibered shape, exact homologies and strong shape theory.

This book is the first one of a work in several volumes, treating the history of the development of topology. The work contains papers which can be classified into 4 main areas. Thus there are contributions dealing with the life and work of individual topologists, with specific schools of topology, with research in topology in various countries, and with the development of topology in different periods. The work is not restricted to topology in the strictest sense but also deals with applications and generalisations in a broad sense. Thus it also treats, e.g., categorical topology, interactions with functional analysis, convergence spaces, and uniform spaces. Written by specialists in the field, it contains a wealth of information which is not available anywhere else.

North-Holland Mathematical Library, Volume 26: Shape Theory: The Inverse System Approach presents a systematic introduction to shape theory by providing background materials, motivation, and examples, including shape theory and invariants, pro-groups, shape fibrations, and metric compacta. The publication first ponders on the foundations of shape theory and shape invariants. Discussions focus on the stability and movability of spaces, homotopy and homology pro-groups, shape dimension, inverse limits and shape of compacta, topological shape, and absolute neighborhood retracts. The text then takes a look at a survey of selected topics, including basic topological constructions and shape, shape dimension of metric compacta, complement theorems of shape theory, shape fibrations, and cell-like maps. The text ponders on polyhedra and Borsuk's approach to shape. Topics include shape category of metric compacta and metric pairs, homotopy type of polyhedra, and topology of simplicial complexes. The publication is a valuable source of data for researchers interested in the inverse system approach.