Book excerpt: This graduate-level text focuses on the stability of adaptive systems, and offers a thorough understanding of the global stability properties essential to designing adaptive systems. Its self-contained, unified presentation of well-known results establishes the close connections between seemingly independent developments in the field. Prerequisites include a knowledge of linear algebra and differential equations, as well as a familiarity with basic concepts in linear systems theory. The first chapter sets the tone for the entire book, introducing basic concepts and tracing the evolution of the field from the 1960s through the 1980s. The first seven chapters are accessible to beginners, and the final four chapters are geared toward more advanced, research-oriented students. Problems ranging in complexity from relatively easy to quite difficult appear throughout the text. Topics include results in stability theory that emphasize incidents directly relevant to the study of adaptive systems; the stability properties of adaptive observers and controllers; the important concept of persistent excitation; the use of error models in systems analysis; areas of intense research activity; and five detailed case studies of systems in which adaptive control has proved successful