Intended as a systematic text on topological vector spaces, this text assumes familiarity with the elements of general topology and linear algebra. Similarly, the elementary facts on Hilbert and Banach spaces are not discussed in detail here, since the book is mainly addressed to those readers who wish to go beyond the introductory level. Each of the chapters is preceded by an introduction and followed by exercises, which in turn are devoted to further results and supplements, in particular, to examples and counter-examples, and hints have been given where appropriate. This second edition has been thoroughly revised and includes a new chapter on C DEGREES* and W DEGR

Vector lattices-also called Riesz spaces, K-lineals, or linear lattices-were first considered by F. Riesz, L. Kantorovic, and H. Freudenthal in the middle nineteen thirties; thus their early theory dates back almost as far as the beginning of the systematic investigation of Banach spaces. Schools of research on vector lattices were subsequently founded in the Soviet Union (Kantorovic, Judin, Pinsker, Vulikh) and in Japan (Nakano, Ogasawara, Yosida); other important contri- butions came from the United States (G. Birkhoff, Kakutani, M. H. Stone). L. Kantorovic and his school first recognized the importance of studying vector lattices in connection with Banach's theory of normed vector spaces; they investigated normed vector lattices as well as order-related linear operators between such vector lattices. (Cf. Kantorovic-Vulikh-Pinsker [1950] and Vulikh [1967].) However, in the years following that early period, functional analysis and vector lattice theory began drifting more and more apart; it is my impression that "linear order theory" could not quite keep pace with the rapid development of general functional analysis and thus developed into a theory largely existing for its own sake, even though it had interesting and beautiful applications here and there.

Intended as a systematic text on topological vector spaces, this text assumes familiarity with the elements of general topology and linear algebra. Similarly, the elementary facts on Hilbert and Banach spaces are not discussed in detail here, since the book is mainly addressed to those readers who wish to go beyond the introductory level. Each of the chapters is preceded by an introduction and followed by exercises, which in turn are devoted to further results and supplements, in particular, to examples and counter-examples, and hints have been given where appropriate. This second edition has been thoroughly revised and includes a new chapter on C DEGREES* and W DEGR