Handbook of the History of General Topology

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 dun theoreme de Weier- strass", C.R.Acad. Sci. 139, 1904, 848-849, and Hausdorffs 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.