Amsterdam, North-Holland, 1984. Thick 8vo (22.3 x 15.2 cm). xxxvi, 1323 pp.; several illustrations. Original printed cloth.

A massive work, containing 11 courses by various physicists, presented at the famous yearly conferences (since 1951) in the French town of Les Houches, high up in the French Alps. One of the participants and contributors was Stephen Hawking, who wrote Course 4. Quantum cosmology, with the following chapters: 1. Introduction, 2. Euclidian Quantum Field theory, 3. Quantum Fields in Curved Space, 4. GUT Era Inflation (discussing four models), 5. Quantum Gravity, 6. The Conformal Factor, 7. The Boundary Conditions, 8. Minisuperspace (in two parts: De Sitter Space, and Our Universe?), 9. Conclusion, and References. Other contributions include Course 1. Mathematics and Physics since 1800 ( Discord and Sympathy) by Res Jos; Course 2. Some chapters for a history of quantum field theory: 1938-195 by S. S. Schweber (well-illustrated), (Course 3. Topological Investigations of Quantized Gauge Theories by Robert Jackiw, and Course 6, Positive-Energy Theorems by Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, the first woman to be elected to the French Academy of Sciences, and a very thorough Course 5, by Bryce Dewitt, titled The Spacetime Approach to Quantum Field Theory. Volume I was published twenty years earlier but is, except for the title, entirely different. The preface is in French and English, all papers are in English. Cancelled stamp on front free endpaper recto, half-title and title; otherwise very good, clean.