Computers and computer networks are one of the most incredible inventions of the 20th century, having an ever-expanding role in our daily lives by enabling complex human activities in areas such as entertainment, education, and commerce. One of the most challenging problems in computer science for the 21st century is to improve the design of distributed systems where computing devices have to work together as a team to achieve common goals. In this book, I have tried to gently introduce the general reader to some of the most fundamental issues and classical results of computer science...