Topology, the foundation of modern analysis, arose historically as a way to organize ideas like compactness and connectedness which had emerged from analysis. Similarly, recent work in dynamical systems theory has both highlighted certain topics in the pre-existing subject of topological dynamics (such as the construction of Lyapunov functions and various notions of stability) and also generated new concepts and results (such as attractors, chain recurrence, and basic sets).

This book collects these results, both old and new, and organizes them into a natural foundation for all aspects of dynamical systems theory. No existing book is comparable in content or scope. Requiring background in point-set topology and some degree of ""mathematical sophistication"", Akin's book serves as an excellent textbook for a graduate course in dynamical systems theory. In addition, Akin's reorganization of previously scattered results makes this book of interest to mathematicians and other researchers who use dynamical systems in their work.