Starting from the basics of profinite groups, Koch gives a self-contained treatment of that part of number theory which has sprung from the "class field tower problem," namely the study of extensions with pro-p Galois group and restricted ramification. The book represents a fairly complete account of the theory as it stood in 1970. For more modern developments, the recent book by Neukirch, Schmidt and Wingberg "Cohomology of Number Fields," Springer 1999, is an excellent reference.

Franz Lemmermeyer and Farshid Hajir are translating Koch's book into English. Other seminar participants are Wayne Aitken and Linda Holt. We meet on Thursdays 11-12. Anyone wishing to participate in person is welcome and should contact Franz or Farshid for details.

We are also taking the seminar online in the following sense. Roughly every week, we will send out to participants, via e-mail, an installment of the translation. Participants are welcome to send remarks, solutions to exercises, etc. to us. We plan to post interesting responses at this web address.

If you would like to participate, please send us an e-mail to that effect.