The works of Jaak Peetre constitute the main body of this treatise. Important contributors are also J. L. Lions and A. P. Calderon, not to mention several others. We, the present authors, have thus merely compiled and explained the works of others (with the exception of a few minor contributions of our own). Let us mention the origin of this treatise. A couple of years ago, J. Peetre suggested to the second author, J. Lofstrom, writing a book on interpolation theory and he most generously put at Lofstrom's disposal an unfinished manu script, covering parts of Chapter 1-3 and 5 of this book....