developments, together with numerous addi­ tional references, are included in a new chapter , "Recent Trends in Monte Carlo Simulations" , which has been written for this second edition. Typographical correc­ tions have been made and fuller references given where appropriate, but otherwise the layout and contents of the other chapters are left unchanged. Thus this book, together with its companion volume mentioned above, gives a fairly complete and up­ to-date review of the field. It is hoped that the reduced price of this paperback edition will make it accessible to a wide range of scientists and students in the fields to which it is relevant: theoretical phYSics and physical chemistry , con­ densed-matter physics and materials science, computational physics and applied mathematics, etc.