Until recently, the Mori-Zwanzig projection operator method, though powerful and simple, has been considered as a half-heuristic one. This book is devoted to a rigorous generalization of this method as well as its applications to nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. The well-known idea of the description of dynamical system evolution in terms of collective dynamical variables has been developed to a functional perturbation theory, which results in the master equation of any given accuracy. Examples of statistical mechanics applications of the method include a linearized transport theory and explicit expressions for transport coefficients of both homogeneous and inhomogeneous liquids, which are in good agreement with experimental data and simulation results.
