The definition of Rouquier for the families of characters introduced by Lusztig for Weyl groups in terms of blocks of the Hecke algebras has made possible the generalization of this notion to the case of complex reflection groups. The aim of this book is to study the blocks and to determine the families of characters for all cyclotomic Hecke algebras associated to complex reflection groups. This volume offers a thorough study of symmetric algebras, covering topics such as block theory, representation theory and Clifford theory, and can also serve as an introduction to the Hecke algebras of complex reflection groups.