Accounting for the enormous and amazing development cosmology has made
in the past ten years, the long awaited second edition of this highly
appraised textbook has been extensively and thoroughly updated. It tells
the story of modern astrophysical cosmology from the perspective of one
of its most important and fundamental problems - how did the galaxies
come about? The author uses this approach to introduce the whole of what
may be called "classical cosmology". Moreover he describes how the study
the origin of galaxies and larger-scale structures in the Universe has
provided us with unique and direct information about the physics of the
very early Universe. The material is presented in an informal
pedagogical manner, emphasizing the underlying physical content of the
subject, and the book is destined to become a favorite text for
students.