Book excerpt: The textbook we offer to the reader is based on a two-term course of lec tures, "Electromagnetic Response of Material Media," that the authors gave for a number of years to the final-year students of the Physics Depart ment of Moscow University. This course built on courses in quantum electronics, nonlinear optics and theoretical fundamentals of quantum radiophysics; students are as sumed to have mastered the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, laser physics and nonlinear optics. The essential core of the course, and hence of the book, is the current general theory of electromagnetic response of a nonrelativistic medium. The main aspects are presented in Chapters 1 and 2. The second part is devoted to more traditional topics which students learn in this course of lectures and also in the course "Condensed Matter Physics" for students who choose to major in radiophysics and laser physics; this course is also taught by the authors at the Physics Department. This volume was intended as a text for students and, as such, does not cite original publications. We decided to provide a list of additional recommended literature, mostly of well known, easily accessible textbooks.