This book offers a detailed presentation of results needed to prove the Morse Homology Theorem using classical techniques from algebraic topology and homotopy theory. The text presents results that were formerly scattered in the mathematical literature, in a single reference with complete and detailed proofs. The core material includes CW-complexes, Morse theory, hyperbolic dynamical systems (the Lamba-Lemma, the Stable/Unstable Manifold Theorem), transversality theory, the Morse-Smale-Witten boundary operator, and Conley index theory.

Recent success with the four-dimensional Poincare conjecture has revived interest in low-dimensional topology, especially the three-dimensional Poincare conjecture and other aspects of the problems of classifying three-dimensional manifolds. These problems have a driving force, and have generated a great body of research, as well as insight.

The main topics treated in this book include a paper by V Poenaru on the Poincare conjecture and its ramifications, giving an insight into the herculean work of the author on the subject. Steve Armentrout's paper on "Bing's dogbone space" belongs to the...

In the 60's, the work of Anderson, Chernavski, Kirby and Edwards showed that the group of homeomorphisms of a smooth manifold which are isotopic to the identity is a simple group. This led Smale to conjecture that the group Diff'" (M)o of cr diffeomorphisms, r 1, of a smooth manifold M, with compact supports, and isotopic to the identity through compactly supported isotopies, is a simple group as well. In this monograph, we give a fairly detailed proof that DifF(M)o is a simple group. This theorem was proved by Herman in the case M is the torus rn in 1971, as a consequence of the...