This account of the History of General Topology has grown out of the
special session on this topic at the American Mathematical Society
meeting in San Anto- nio, Texas, 1993. It was there that the idea grew
to publish a book on the historical development of General Topology.
Moreover it was felt that it was important to undertake this project
while topologists who knew some of the early researchers were still
active. Since the first paper by Frechet, "Generalisation d'un theoreme
de Weier- strass", C.R.Acad. Sci. 139, 1904, 848-849, and Hausdorff's
classic book, "GrundZiige der Mengenlehre", Leipzig, 1914, there have
been numerous devel- opments in a multitude of directions and there have
been many interactions with a great number of other mathematical fields.
We have tried to cover as many of these as possible. Most contributions
concern either individual topologists, specific schools, specific
periods, specific topics or a combination of these.