The study of exponential sums over finite fields, begun by Gauss nearly
two centuries ago, has been completely transformed in recent years by
advances in algebraic geometry, culminating in Deligne's work on the
Weil Conjectures. It now appears as a very attractive mixture of
algebraic geometry, representation theory, and the sheaf-theoretic
incarnations of such standard constructions of classical analysis as
convolution and Fourier transform. The book is simultaneously an account
of some of these ideas, techniques, and results, and an account of their
application to concrete equidistribution questions concerning
Kloosterman sums and Gauss sums.