This book grew out of sets of notes that were provided for students attending
the 45-hours elective graduate course Capita Selecta in Geometry in
2003 and in 2005 at Ghent University, Belgium. In 2003, the main object of
the course was to discuss the Moufang Property for generalized quadrangles,
and local versions of it such as being translation with respect to a point
or a line. In 2005, the main object was the theory of finite translation generalized
quadrangles. In both years, the lecturers were the authors of this
book. The audience consisted of undergraduate students, Ph.D. students
and post-docs of the research group Incidence Geometry at Ghent University.
We thank them for their interest and their questions that forced us,
once in a while, to review some mathematical details and arguments.
The research needed to write a monograph like the present one is financed
by a number of organizations. First of all, we are indebted to the Research
Council of Ghent University for awarding a GOA grant Incidence Geometry.
We also would like to thank the Fund for Scientific Research — Flanders
(Belgium) FWO for financial support (research money, Ph.D.-grants, postdoc
positions, travel support) and the Institute for Science and Technology
IWT for providing Ph.D.-grants. We thank our secretary Sonia Surmont for
typing large parts of the manuscript. Finally, a warm "thank you" to all
our colleagues and friends in the research group Incidence Geometry for the
wonderful atmosphere.