This is the first treatment in book form of the applications of the lower K- and L-groups (which are the components of the Grothendieck groups of modules and quadratic forms over polynomial extension rings) to the topology of manifolds such as Euclidean spaces, via Whitehead torsion and the Wall finiteness and surgery obstructions. The author uses only elementary constructions and gives a full algebraic account of the groups involved; of particular note is an algebraic treatment of geometric transversality for maps to the circle.

This book presents the definitive account of the applications of this algebra to the surgery classification of topological manifolds. The central result is the identification of a manifold structure in the homotopy type of a Poincare duality space with a local quadratic structure in the chain homotopy type of the universal cover. The difference between the homotopy types of manifolds and Poincare duality spaces is identified with the fibre of the algebraic L-theory assembly map, which passes from local to global quadratic duality structures on chain complexes. The algebraic L-theory assembly...