Book excerpt: The second Arolla conference on algebraic topology brought together specialists covering a wide range of homotopy theory and $K$-theory. These proceedings reflect both the variety of talks given at the conference and the diversity of promising research directions in homotopy theory. The articles contained in this volume include significant contributions to classical unstable homotopy theory, model category theory, equivariant homotopy theory, and the homotopy theory of fusionsystems, as well as to $K$-theory of both local fields and $C*$-algebras.