Book excerpt: Palaeomagnetism is a technique used to understand complex deformation patterns in fold-and-thrust belts; it can be used to characterize the distribution, magnitude and timing of vertical axis rotations, an elusive variable using other methods. A combination of palaeomagnetic and structural geology analyses has helped to unravel the geometry and kinematics of fold-and-thrust belts around the world and of different geological ages for more than 50 years. This volume comprises three sections: the first shows thorough overviews of western Mediterranean arcs and the western Carpathians; the second depicts several examples from the Andes, the Alps, Anatolia, Pyrenees, Iberian Ranges and the Atlas; and the third shows the latest research on the use of palaeomagnetism to understand fold-and-thrust belts in 3D and 4D in a more quantitative way and it also includes some methodological proposals to avoid common errors. In the papers of the first two sections, the combination of palaeomagnetic analyses with structural data, AMS or magnetostratigraphic analyses demonstrate the usefulness of palaeomagnetism in deciphering complex deformation patterns in fold-and-thrust belts.