The first major topology institute at the University of Georgia was held in the summer of 1961; smaller one-week conferences have taken place annually in subsequent years. In late 1967 we began to feel that another institute, similarto that of 1961, was justified by the extraordinary developments of recent years in the geometric topology of manifolds. Many of the historic problems that have motivated much of the development of topology in this century have now been solved. For instance, of the seven problems proposed by Milnor at the 1963 Seattle conference as the most important ones in geometric topology, all but two have been essentially resolved in the past four years. Most of these problems -as well as many others—arc discussed in varvinc detail in this volume.