This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to the physics of laser-plasma interactions (LPI), based on a graduate course taught by the author. The emphasis is on high-energy-density physics (HEDP) and inertial confinement fusion (ICF), with a comprehensive description of the propagation, absorption, nonlinear effects and parametric instabilities of high energy lasers in plasmas.The recent demonstration of a burning plasma on the verge of nuclear fusion ignition at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California, has marked the beginning of a new era of ICF and fusion...