From the reviews: Pierre Papon and his co-authors succeed in covering a much wider range of transitions than I have ever seen in one book before … Overall, we have here a treatment of strikingly wide perspective, and many readers who may not be motivated to work right through the book will find individual chapters interesting and instructive. I defy anyone who is interested in phase transformations not to learn something from this book." Nature From the reviews of the second edition: "Phase transitions presents an important phenomena in physics and plays a central role in material sciences. … The book might assist those researchers and students in theoretical and applied physics who wish to enter this scene by offering an accessible but detailed and explicit introduction to physics of phase transitions. ... The text aims to be self-contained in explaining the subject. The book is organized with the benefit of hindsight - results are presented in the order expected to be most beneficial to the reader." (Farruh Mukhamedov, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1128 (6), 2008) This book occupies an important place at the crossroads of several fields central to materials sciences. The expanded second edition incorporates new developments in the states of matter physics, and includes end-of-chapter problems and complete answers.