Book excerpt: The concept of symmetric space is of central importance in many branches of mathematics. Compactifications of these spaces have been studied from the points of view of representation theory, geometry, and random walks. This work is devoted to the study of the interrelationships among these various compactifications and, in particular, focuses on the martin compactifications. It is the first exposition to treat compactifications of symmetric spaces systematically and to uniformized the various points of view. The work is largely self-contained, with comprehensive references to the literature. It is an excellent resource for both researchers and graduate students.