This book describes work on the characterization of closed 4-manifolds in terms of familiar invariants such as Euler characteristic, fundamental group, and Stiefel-Whitney classes. Using techniques from homological group theory, the theory of 3-manifolds and topological surgery, infrasolvmanifolds are characterized up to homeomorphism, and surface bundles are characterized up to simple homotopy equivalence. Non-orientable cases are also considered wherever possible, and in the final chapter the results obtained earlier are applied to 2-knots and complex analytic surfaces.

This book is intended as a reference on links and on the invariants derived via algebraic topology from covering spaces of link exteriors. It emphasizes features of the multicomponent case not normally considered by knot theorists, such as longitudes, the homological complexity of many-variable Laurent polynomial rings, free coverings of homology boundary links, the fact that links are not usually boundary links, the lower central series as a source of invariants, nilpotent completion and algebraic closure of the link group, and disc links. Invariants of the types considered here play an...