This book is part of a series of reprints from Springer containing the proceedings of the Centro Internazionale Matematico Estivo, which translates as International Summer Mathematical Center. C.I.M.E. runs summer schools on various interesting mathematical topics. According to the Springer web site,
Conceived in the early fifties, it was born in 1954 in Florence, Italy, and welcomed by the world mathematical community: it continues successfully, year for year, to this day. These historical reproductions of the summer school texts originally published by C.I.M.E., from the beginning in 1954 until 1980, complete the C.I.M.E. collection at Springer. Since 1981 they have been published in the Fondazione C.I.M.E. subseries of the Lecture Notes in Mathematics.
The new series reprints all of the older volumes. Since they come from the days before electronic typesetting, most of these volumes are truly oldstyle: photographic reproductions of typescript, sometimes with certain symbols added by hand.
Some of the volumes have mostly historical interest, but many will still be useful, since they contain expository articles by well-known mathematicians who participated in the C.I.M.E. summer schools. The volume on Algebraic Surfaces, from 1977, includes several interesting articles that will interest both specialists and mathematicians interested in learning the subject. See the table of contents for specifics.
Fernando Q. Gouvêa is editor of MAA Reviews.