Important results on the Hilbert modular group and Hilbert modular forms
are introduced and described in this book. In recent times, this branch
of number theory has been given more and more attention and thus the
need for a comprehensive presentation of these results, previously
scattered in research journal papers, has become obvious. The main aim
of this book is to give a description of the singular cohomology and its
Hodge decomposition including explicit formulae. The author has
succeeded in giving proofs which are both elementary and complete. The
book contains an introduction to Hilbert modular forms, reduction
theory, the trace formula and Shimizu's formulae, the work of Matsushima
and Shimura, analytic continuation of Eisenstein series, the cohomology
and its Hodge decomposition. Basic facts about algebraic numbers,
integration, alternating differential forms and Hodge theory are
included in convenient appendices so that the book can be used by
students with a knowledge of complex analysis (one variable) and
algebra.