This unified account of various aspects of a powerful classical method, easy to understand in its simplest forms, is illustrated by applications in several areas of number theory. As well as including diophantine approximation and transcendence, which were mainly responsible for its invention, the author places the method in a broader context by exploring its application in other areas, such as exponential sums and counting problems in both finite fields and the field of rationals. Throughout the book, the method is explained in a 'molecular' fashion, where key ideas are introduced...