Book excerpt: W. J. Blok and Don Pigozzi set out to try to answer the question of what it means for a logic to have algebraic semantics. In this seminal book they transformed the study of algebraic logic by giving a general framework for the study of logics by algebraic means. The Dutch mathematician W. J. Blok (1947-2003) received his doctorate from the University of Amsterdam in 1979 and was Professor of Mathematics at the University of Illinois, Chicago until his death in an automobile accident. Don Pigozzi (1935- ) grew up in Oakland, California, received his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in 1970, and was Professor of Mathematics at Iowa State University until his retirement in 2002. The Advanced Reasoning Forum is pleased to make available in its Classic Reprints series this exact reproduction of the 1989 text, with a new errata sheet prepared by Don Pigozzi.