Book excerpt: This book presents a systematic exposition of the general theory of nonlinear contraction semigroups in Banach spaces and is aimed at students and researchers in science and engineering as well as in mathematics. Suitable for use as a textbook in graduate courses and seminars, this self-contained book is accessible to those with only a basic knowledge of functional analysis. After preprequisites presented in the first chapter, Miyadera covers the basic properties of dissipative operators and nonlinear contraction semigroups in Banach spaces. The generation of nonlinear contraction semigroups, the Komura theorem, and the Crandall-Liggett theorem are explored, and there is a treatment of the convergence of difference approximation of Cauchy problems for ????- dissipative operators and the Kobayashi generation theorem of nonlinear semigroups. Nonlinear Semigroups concludes with applications to nonlinear evolution equations and to first order quasilinear equations.