Model theory has made substantial contributions to semialgebraic, subanalytic, p-adic, rigid and diophantine geometry. In this book, originally published in 2000, leading experts provide the necessary background to understanding the model theory and mathematics behind these applications.

Model theory is a branch of mathematical logic that has found applications in several areas of algebra and geometry. It provides a unifying framework for the understanding of old results and more recently has led to significant new results, such as a proof of the Mordell-Lang conjecture for function fields in positive characteristic. Perhaps surprisingly, it is sometimes the most abstract aspects of model theory that are relevant to those applications. This book gives the necessary background for understanding both the model theory and the mathematics behind the applications. Aimed at graduate students and researchers, it contains introductory surveys by leading experts covering the whole spectrum of contemporary model theory (stability, simplicity, o-minimality and variations), and introducing and discussing the diverse areas of geometry (algebraic, diophantine, real analytic, p-adic, and rigid) to which the model theory is applied. The book begins with an introduction to model theory by David Marker. It then broadens into three components: pure model theory (Bradd Hart, Dugald Macpherson), geometry(Barry Mazur, Ed Bierstone and Pierre Milman, Jan Denef), and the model theory of fields (Marker, Lou van den Dries, Zoe Chatzidakis).