A concise introduction to the techniques used to prove the Baum-Connes
conjecture. The Baum-Connes conjecture predicts that the K-homology of
the reduced C^*-algebra of a group can be computed as the equivariant
K-homology of the classifying space for proper actions. The approach is
expository, but it contains proofs of many basic results on topological
K-homology and the K-theory of C^*-algebras. It features a detailed
introduction to Bredon homology for infinite groups, with applications
to K-homology. It also contains a detailed discussion of naturality
questions concerning the assembly map, a topic not well documented in
the literature.
The book is aimed at advanced graduate students and researchers in the
area, leading to current research problems.