This is the second edition of a book originally published in 1997. Today the internet virtually consumes all of our lives (especially the lives of writers). As both readers and writers, we are all aware of blogs, chat rooms, and preprint servers. There are now electronic-only journals and print-on-demand books, Open Access journals and joint research projects such as MathOverflow-not to mention a host of other new realities. It truly is a brave new world, one that can be overwhelming and confusing. The truly new feature of this second edition is an extensive discussion of technological developments. Similar to the first edition, Krantz's frank and straightforward approach makes this book particularly suitable as a textbook for an undergraduate course.
