Jurgen Neukirch Class Field TheoryPreface Class field theory, which is so immediately compelling in its main assertions, has, ever since its invention, suffered from the fact that its proofs have required a complicated and. by comparison with the results, rather imper- spicuous system of arguments which have tended to jump around ail over the place. My earlier presentation of the theory [41] has strengthened me in the belief that a highly elaborate mechanism, such as, for example, cohomol- ogy. might not be adequate for a number-theoretical law admitting a very direct formulation, and that the truth of such a law must be susceptible to a far more immediate insight. I was determined to write the present, new account of class field theory by the discovery that, in fact, both the local and the global reciprocity laws may be subsumed under a purely group- theoretical principle, admitting an entirely elementary description. This de- scription makes possible a new foundation for the entire theory. The rapid advance to the main theorems of class field theory which results from this approach has made it possible to include in this volume the most important consequences and elaborations. and further relaied theories. with the excep- tion of the cohomology version which [ have this time excluded. This remains a significant variant. rich in application, but its principal results should be directly obtained from the material treated here. I have likewise not discussed the class field theory of congruence function fields, although it too represents a special case of the abstract, purely group-theoretical theory. The repeated modification of the ideas and arguments would have seriously disturbed the flow of the treatment; moreover it seems to me that function fields should be treated from a geometrical point of view, as was done in Serre’s presentation [47]. Accordingly many proofs in the class field theory of local fields are also only given in the case of characteristic 0. Prerequisite for reading this text, apart from Galois theory, is merely a standard introduction to the theory of algebraic and p-adic number fields. I should expressly thank Werner Bauer, Dr. Christopher Deninger. Dr. Norman Walter and Dr. Kay Wingberg for their careful proofreading of the manuscript. I am further grateful to Dr. Wingberg and Professor J.H Lenstra for their good advice as to the emergence of abstract class field theory, to Professor Rogert Perlis for linguistic advice with respect to the English edition of this book. and to Professor Peter Hilton for the trans- lation of the preface. Finally I would like to thank Frau Erna Dollinger and Frau Martina Hertl for typing the manuscript; their perfect work relieved me of much additional trouble. Regensburg, October 1985 Jiirgen Neukirch