Semisimple groups and Riemannian symmetric spaces (Q5906346)

This book is a print of lecture notes of Professor Borel which had so far remained unpublished, although these notes have been in circulation for almost forty years. The book is written in his characteristically clear and pithy style. It manages to bring forth the essential algebraic and geometric aspects of the subject in a mere 136 pages. The geometric aspects are developed from first principles, leading to the decomposition theorem for Riemannian symmetric spaces and the embedding theorem for Hermitian symmetric spaces. The final chapter is on maximal compact subgroups of Lie groups and it contains an algebraic proof of their conjugacy. Altogether, the book is a pleasure to read and it is a very welcome addition to the literature on the subject.