This volume contains a selection of the most important papers in the theory of chaotic attractors over the past 40 years. It is dedicated to James Yorke - a pioneer in the field and a recipient of the 2003 Japan prize - on the occasion of his 60th birthday. The volume includes an introduction to Yorke's work and an overview of key developments in the theory of chaotic attractors.

The editors felt that the time was right for a book on an important topic, the history and development of the notions of chaotic attractors and their "natu ral" invariant measures. We wanted to bring together a coherent collection of readable, interesting, outstanding papers for detailed study and comparison. We hope that this book will allow serious graduate students to hold seminars to study how the research in this field developed. Limitation of space forced us painfully to exclude many excellent, relevant papers, and the resulting choice reflects the interests of the editors. Since James Alan Yorke was born August 3, 1941, we chose to have this book commemorate his sixtieth birthday, honoring his research in this field. The editors are four of his collaborators. We would particularly like to thank Achi Dosanjh (senior editor math ematics), Elizabeth Young (assistant editor mathematics), Joel Ariaratnam (mathematics editorial), and Yong-Soon Hwang (book production editor) from Springer Verlag in New York for their efforts in publishing this book."