'… the author deals directly with the loop expansion of the free energy, also known as the background field method. This is a powerful method, especially when dealing with symmetries, and statistical mechanics.' Nenad Manojlovic, Zentralblatt MATH
1. A few well-known basic results; 2. Introduction: order parameters, broken symmetries; 3. Examples of physical situations modelled by the Ising model; 4. A few results about the Ising model; 5. High temperature and low temperature expansions; 6. Some geometric problems related to phase transitions; 7. Phenomenological description of the critical behaviour; 8. Mean field theory; 9. Beyond mean field theory; 10. Introduction to the renormalization group; 11. Renormalization group for the φ4 theory; 12. Renormalized theory; 13. Goldstone modes; 14. Large n; Index.