Iwasawa theory began in the late 1950s with a series of papers by Kenkichi Iwasawa on ideal class groups in the cyclotomic tower of number fields and their relation to ??-adic ??-functions. The main motivation for writing this book was the need for a total perspective of Iwasawa theory that includes the new trends of generalized Iwasawa theory.
Tadashi Ochiai, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan.