From the Internet to networks of friendship, disease transmission, and
even terrorism, the concept--and the reality--of networks has come to
pervade modern society. But what exactly is a network? What different
types of networks are there? Why are they interesting, and what can they
tell us? In recent years, scientists from a range of fields--including
mathematics, physics, computer science, sociology, and biology--have
been pursuing these questions and building a new "science of networks."
This book brings together for the first time a set of seminal articles
representing research from across these disciplines. It is an ideal
sourcebook for the key research in this fast-growing field.
The book is organized into four sections, each preceded by an editors'
introduction summarizing its contents and general theme. The first
section sets the stage by discussing some of the historical antecedents
of contemporary research in the area. From there the book moves to the
empirical side of the science of networks before turning to the
foundational modeling ideas that have been the focus of much subsequent
activity. The book closes by taking the reader to the cutting edge of
network science--the relationship between network structure and system
dynamics. From network robustness to the spread of disease, this section
offers a potpourri of topics on this rapidly expanding frontier of the
new science.
