This book is a slightly expanded reproduction of the first two chapters
(plus Introduction) of my book Perturbation Theory tor Linear Operators,
Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften 132, Springer 1980. Ever
since, or even before, the publication of the latter, there have been
suggestions about separating the first two chapters into a single
volume. I have now agreed to follow the suggestions, hoping that it will
make the book available to a wider audience. Those two chapters were
intended from the outset to be a comprehen- sive presentation of those
parts of perturbation theory that can be treated without the topological
complications of infinite-dimensional spaces. In fact, many essential
and. even advanced results in the theory have non- trivial contents in
finite-dimensional spaces, although one should not forget that some
parts of the theory, such as those pertaining to scatter- ing. are
peculiar to infinite dimensions. I hope that this book may also be used
as an introduction to linear algebra. I believe that the analytic
approach based on a systematic use of complex functions, by way of the
resolvent theory, must have a strong appeal to students of analysis or
applied mathematics, who are usually familiar with such analytic tools.