These notes provide a reasonably self-contained introductory survey of certain aspects of harmonic analysis on compact groups. The first part of the book seeks to give a brief account of integration theory on compact Hausdorff spaces. The second, larger part starts from the existence and essential uniqueness of an invariant integral on every compact Hausdorff group. Topics subsequently outlined include representations, the Peter Weyl theory, positive definite functions, summability and convergence, spans of translates, closed ideals and invariant subspaces, spectral synthesis problems, the...

1 Faced by the questions mentioned in the Preface I was prompted to write this book on the assumption that a typical reader will have certain characteristics. He will presumably be familiar with conventional accounts of certain portions of mathematics and with many so-called mathematical statements, some of which (the theorems) he will know (either because he has himself studied and digested a proof or because he accepts the authority of others) to be true, and others of which he will know (by the same token) to be false. He will nevertheless be conscious of and perturbed by a lack of clarity...

appear in Volume 1, a Roman numeral "I" has been prefixed as a reminder to the reader; thus, for example, "I, B.2.1 " refers to Appendix B.2.1 in Volume 1. An understanding of the main topics discussed in this book does not, I hope, hinge upon repeated consultation of the items listed in the bibli- ography. Readers with a limited aim should find strictly necessary only an occasional reference to a few of the book listed. The remaining items, and especially the numerous research papers mentioned, are listed as an aid to those readers who wish to pursue the subject beyond the limits reached in...