This book provides a thorough and self-contained introduction to the
theory of commutative Banach algebras. The author has carefully chosen
the most important topics within Banach algebra theory. At the core of
this text are the chapters on Gelfand's theory, regularity and spectral
synthesis. Special emphasis is placed on applications in abstract
harmonic analysis and on treating many special classes of commutative
Banach algebras, such as uniform algebras, group algebras and Beurling
algebras, and tensor products. Detailed proofs and a variety of
exercises are given. The book is intended for graduate students taking a
course on Banach algebras, with various possible specializations, or a
Gelfand theory based course in harmonic analysis.