The study of the structure of Lie algebras over arbitrary fields is now
a little more than thirty years old. The first papers, to my know-
ledge, which undertook this study as an end in itself were those of
JACOBSON (" Rational methods in the theory of Lie algebras ") in the
Annals, and of LANDHERR ("Uber einfache Liesche Ringe") in the Hamburg
Abhandlungen, both in 1935. Over fields of characteristic zero, these
thirty years have seen the ideas and results inherited from LIE,
KILLING, E. CARTAN and WEYL developed and given new depth, meaning and
elegance by many contributors. Much of this work is presented in [47,
64, 128 and 234] of the bibliography. For those who find the
rationalization for the study of Lie algebras in their connections with
Lie groups, satisfying counterparts to these connections have been found
over general non-modular fields, with the substitution of the formal
groups of BOCHNER [40] (see also DIEUDONNE [108]), or that of the
algebraic linear groups of CHEVALLEY [71], for the usual Lie group. In
particular, the relation with algebraic linear groups has stimulated the
study of Lie algebras of linear transformations. When one admits to
consideration Lie algebras over a base field of positive characteristic
(such are the algebras to which the title of this monograph refers), he
encounters a new and initially confusing scene.