Brauer had already introduced the defect of a block and opened the way towards a classification by solving all the problems in defects zero and one, and by providing some evidence for the finiteness of the set of blocks with a given defect. In 1959 he discovered the defect group, and in 1964 Dade determined the blocks with cyclic defect groups.
In 1978 Alperin and BrouA(c) discovered the Brauer category, and BrouA(c) and the author determined the blocks having a nilpotent Brauer category. In 1979, the author discovered the source algebra which determines all the other current...

About 60 years ago, R. Brauer introduced "block theory"; his purpose was to study the group algebra kG of a finite group G over a field k of nonzero characteristic p: any indecomposable two-sided ideal that also is a direct summand of kG determines a G-block.
But the main discovery of Brauer is perhaps the existence of families of infinitely many nonisomorphic groups having a "common block"; i.e., blocks having mutually isomorphic "source algebras."
In this book, based on a course given by the author at Wuhan University in 1999, all the concepts mentioned are introduced, and all the...

Brauer had already introduced the defect of a block and opened the way towards a classification by solving all the problems in defects zero and one, and by providing some evidence for the finiteness of the set of blocks with a given defect. In 1959 he discovered the defect group, and in 1964 Dade determined the blocks with cyclic defect groups.
In 1978 Alperin and Broue discovered the Brauer category, and Broue and the author determined the blocks having a nilpotent Brauer category. In 1979, the author discovered the source algebra which determines all the other current invariants,...