The aim of this book is to introduce the reader to the geometric theory of algebraic varieties, in particular to the birational geometry of algebraic
varieties.
This volume grew out of the authors book in Japanese published in 3
volumes by Iwanami, Tokyo, in 1977. While writing this English version, the
author has tried to rearrange and rewrite the original material so that even
beginners can read it easily without referring to other books, such as
textbooks on commutative algebra. The reader is only expected to know the
definition of Noetherin rings and the statement of the Hilbert basis
theorem.