This volume of the Handbook is the first of a two-volume set of reviews devoted to the rare-earth-based high-temperature oxide superconductors (commonly known as hiTC superconductors). The history of hiTC superconductors is a few months short of being 14 years old when Bednorz and MUller published their results which showed that (La, BA)2CuO4 had a superconducting transition of 30 K, which was about 7K higher than any other known superconducting material. Within a year the upper temperature limit was raised to nearly 100K with the discovery of an 90K superconducting transition in...

This Topics in Current Physics (TCP) Volume 34 is concerned primarily with super- conductivity and magnetism, and the mutual interaction of these two phenomena in ternary rare earth compounds. It is the companion of TCP Volume 32 - Superconduc- tivity in Ternary Compounds: Structural, Electronic and Lattice Properties. The interplay between superconductivity and magnetism has intrigued theoreticians and experimentalists alike for more than two decades. V. L. Ginzburg first addressed the question of whether or not superconductivity and ferromagnetism could coexist in 1957, and B. T. Matthias...