It was about four years ago that Springer-Verlag suggested that a revised edition in a single volume of my two-volume work may be worthwhile. I agreed enthusiastically but the project was delayed for many reasons, one of the most important of which was that I did not have at that time any clear idea as to how the revision was to be carried out. Eventually I decided to leave intact most ofthe original material, but make the current edition a little more up-to-date by adding, in the form of notes to the individual chapters, some recent references and occasional brief discussions of topics not treated in the original text. The only substantive change from the earlier work is in the treatment of projective geometry; Chapters II through V of the original Volume I have been condensed and streamlined into a single Chapter II. I wish to express my deep gratitude to Donald Babbitt for his generous advice that helped me in organizing this revision, and to Springer-Verlag for their patience and understanding that went beyond what one has a right to expect from a publisher. I suppose an author's feelings are always mixed when one of his books that is comparatively old is brought out once again.weiterlesen