Book excerpt: Unique in its breadth of coverage and level of presentation, this revised textbook provides more on the nature of galaxies, extragalactic objects, the large-scale structure of the Universe, and cosmology than is available in general textbooks on astronomy. It remains, however, accessible to advanced undergraduate students. One or more chapters are devoted to each of the following: the classification and morphology of galaxies; the galactic interstellar medium; galactic kinematics; elliptical, spiral, and barred spiral galaxies; the interactions between galaxies; extragalactic radio sources, quasars and their line spectra, and other active galactic nuclei; the formation of galaxies; the Universe as a whole; and cosmology.