Includes bibliographical references and index.

Fundamentals of statistical physics: the lectures - a survey; one particle and many; Gaussian distributions; quantum mechanics and lattices. Random dynamics: diffusion and hopping; from hops to statistical mechanics; correlations and response. More statistical mechanics: statistical thermodynamics; Fermi, Bose, and other. Phase transitions: overview of phase transitions; mean field theory of critical behaviour; continuous phase transitions; renormalization in one dimension; real space renormalization techniques; duality; planar model and Coulomb systems; XY model, renormalization and duality.

The material presented in this textbook has been tested in two courses. One of these is a graduate-level survey of statistical physics; the other, a rather personal perspective on critical behaviour. Thus, this book defines a progression starting at the book-learning part of graduate education and ending in the midst of topics at the research level. To supplement the research-level side the book includes some research papers. Several of these are classics in the field, including a suite of six works on self-organized criticality and complexity, a pair on diffusion-limited aggregation, some papers on correlations near critical points, a few of the basic sources on the development of the real-space renormalization group, and several papers on magnetic behaviour in a plain geometry. In addition, the author has included a few of his own papers.