Permutation groups arguably form the oldest part of group theory. Their study dates back to the early years of the nineteenth century and, indeed, for a long time groups were always understood to be permutation groups. Although, of course, this is no longer true, permutation groups continue to play an important role in modern group theory through the ubiquity of group actions and the concrete representations which permutation groups provide for abstract groups. Today, both finite and infinite permutation groups are lively topics of research.本書(shū)為英文版!