Book excerpt: Here, the eminent algebraist, Nathan Jacobsen, concentrates on those algebras that have an involution. Although they appear in many contexts, these algebras first arose in the study of the so-called "multiplication algebras of Riemann matrices". Of particular interest are the Jordan algebras determined by such algebras, and thus their structure is discussed in detail. Two important concepts also dealt with are the universal enveloping algebras and the reduced norm. However, the largest part of the book is the fifth chapter, which focuses on involutorial simple algebras of finite dimension over a field.