Serban-Valentin Stratila is Senior Researcher, Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, Romania. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Bucharest, Romania in 1973. His current research includes operator algebras and representation theory. He was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Cincinnati University, University of Nevada, Reno, University of Iowa, University of Orleans, France and Lille University of Science and Technology, France. He received the 1975 Simion Stoilow Prize for Mathematics, Romanian Academy. Laszlo Zsido is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Bucharest, Romania in 1973 and has published more than seventy papers in journals of international repute. His areas of research include functional analysis, harmonic analysis, generalized functions and ergodic theory.

• Preface; Introduction; Dedication; 1. Topologies on spaces of operators; 2. Bounded linear operators in Hilbert space; 3. Von Neumann algebras; 4. The geometry of projections and the classification of von Neumann algebras; 5. Linear forms on operator algebras; 6. Relationships between a von Neumann algebras and its commutant; 7. Finite von Neumann algebras; 8. Spatial isomorphisms and relations between topologies; 9. Unbounded linear operators in Hilbert spaces; 10. The theory of standard von Neumann algebras; Appendix; References; Subject index; Notation index.