William S. Massey Professor Massey, born in Illinois in 1920, received his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and then served for four years in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the War he received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and spent two additional years there as a post-doctoral research assistant. He then taught for ten years on the faculty of Brown University, and moved to his present position at Yale in 1960. He is the author of numerous research articles on algebraic topology and related topics. This book developed from lecture notes of courses taught to Yale undergraduate and graduate students over a period of several years.

A systematic treatment of the classification of compact 2-manifolds, the fundamental group, covering spaces, singular homology theory, and singular cohomology theory - avoiding all unnecessary definitions, terminology, and technical machinery. Wherever possible, the geometric motivation behind the various concepts is emphasised. The text contains material from the authors earlier book, Algebraic Topology: An Introduction (GTM 56), together with almost all of the now out-of- print Singular Homology Theory (GTM 70) - all of it naturally carefully revised, and brought up to date.