Selected Works I

Herbert Busemann (1905-1994) was one of the most original geometers of the twentieth century, and one of the main founders of metric methods in geometry. His work brought together the axiomatic geometry of Hilbert, Minkowski's work on convex bodies, and the differential geometry that had blossomed in the 1920s and 1930s – but that only caught up with his insistence on global results after the “im grossem” revolution of the 1960s. A geometer well ahead of his time, Busemann pioneered topics such as the theory of calibrations, global differential geometry and the geometry of normed spaces. His works are a gold mine of ideas and problems that will continue to influence research in convex and metric geometry. Busemann's originality is accompanied by a return to the sources, that is, to the most fundamental elements of geometry. The techniques he introduced and the problems he formulated have a considerable influence on modern research and seem poised to continue that influence well intothe future.

• Preface.- Introduction to Volume I.- List of publications of Herbert Busemann.- Acknowledgements.- Essays.- A. Papadpoulos: Herbert Busemann (1905-1994).- A. Papadopoulos and M. Troyanov: On three early papers by Herbert Busemann on the foundations of geometry.- M. Troyanov: On Pasch's Axiom and Desargues' Theorem in Busemann's work.- V. N. Berestovskiy: Busemann's results, ideas, questions on locally compact homogeneous geodesic spaces.- A. Papadopoulos and S. Yamada: Busemann's problems on G-spaces.- Busemann's metric theory of timelike spaces.- A. Papadopoulos: Chronogeometry.- W. M. Boothby: Review of Busemann's book The geometry of Geodesics.- F. A. Ficken: Review of Busemann's book Metric Methods in Finsler Spaces and in the Foundations of Geometry.- Busemann's papers on the foundations of geodesic spaces and on the metric geometry of Finsler spaces.