Book excerpt: This volume contains a collection of papers based on lectures and presentations delivered at the International Conference on Constructive Nonsmooth Analysis (CNSA) held in St. Petersburg (Russia) from June 18-23, 2012. This conference was organized to mark the 50th anniversary of the birth of nonsmooth analysis and nondifferentiable optimization and was dedicated to J.-J. Moreau and the late B.N. Pshenichnyi, A.M. Rubinov, and N.Z. Shor, whose contributions to NSA and NDO remain invaluable. The first four chapters of the book are devoted to the theory of nonsmooth analysis. Chapters 5-8 contain new results in nonsmooth mechanics and calculus of variations. Chapters 9-13 are related to nondifferentiable optimization, and the volume concludes with four chapters containing interesting and important historical chapters, including tributes to three giants of nonsmooth analysis, convexity, and optimization: Alexandr Alexandrov, Leonid Kantorovich, and Alex Rubinov. The last chapter provides an overview and important snapshots of the 50-year history of convex analysis and optimization.