This book establishes the fundamental theorems of the subject in full and rigorous detail. In particular, the book contains complete proofs of Gromov's compactness theorem for spheres, of the gluing theorem for spheres, and of the associativity of quantum multiplication in the semipositive case. The book can also serve as an introduction to current work in symplectic topology: There are two long chapters on applications, one concentrating on classical results in symplectic topology and the other concerned with quantum cohomology. The last chapter sketches some recent developments in Floer theory. The five appendices of the book provide necessary background related to the classical theory of linear elliptic operators, Fredholm theory, Sobolev spaces, as well as a discussion of the moduli space of genus zero stable curves and a proof of the positivity of intersections of $J$-holomorphic curves in four dimensional manifolds.
