No label defined (Q4383845)

These notes, written from the author's expository lectures delivered at the CBMS regional conference at George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia) in 1983, were first published fifteen years ago (1984), almost exactly at the same time when the author's comprehensive monograph ``Intersection theory'' [cf.: \textit{W. Fulton}, Intersection theory. Ergebn. Math. Grenzgeb., 3. Folge, Band 2, (1984; Zbl 0541.14005)] appeared. In fact, these notes provide a broad survey on many topics in both classical and modern intersection theory, the details of which had been elaborated in that brilliant monograph of W. Fulton's. While the author's nearly encyclopaedic book ``Intersection theory'' has quickly become the most important standard text on this subject, these notes have maintained their outstanding role as both a beautiful introduction and a masterly survey in this area of algebraic geometry. Now, in the present third printing of these notes, the author has taken the opportunity to correct some errors and misprints and, what is even more important, to add a section that up-dates the notes by pointing out some of the work that has been done in, and that is related to algebraic intersection theory since the first edition appeared. These additional remarks not only provide a (selective) up-dating of the bibliography, but guide the interested reader into various directions of the recent developments that the vivid area of intersection theory has undergone between 1983 and 1995. Now as before, W. Fulton's introductory notes are an excellent invitation to this subject, and a valuable spring of information for any mathematician interested in the methods of algebraic geometry in general.