This book is the outcome of the 1996 Warwick Algebraic Geometry EuroConference, containing seventeen survey and research articles selected from the most outstanding contemporary research topics in algebraic geometry. Several of the articles are expository: among these a beautiful short exposition by Paranjape of the new and very simple approach to the resolution of singularities; a detailed essay by Ito and Nakamura on the ubiquitous A, D, E classification,...