This accessible introduction for Ph.D. students and non-specialists provides Quillen's unique development of cyclic theory.

Daniel G. Quillen proved Adam's conjecture in topological K-theory, and Serre's conjecture that all projective modules over a polynomial ring are free. He was awarded the Cole Prize in Algebra and the Fields Medal in 1978. He was Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Oxford, where he lectured on K-theory and cyclic homology.

Introduction; 1. Background results; 2. Cyclic cocycles and basic operators; 3. Algebras of operators; 4. GNS algebra; 5. Geometrical examples; 6. The algebra of noncommutative differential forms; 7. Hodge decomposition and the Karoubi operator; 8. Connections; 9. Cocycles for a commutative algebra over a manifold; 10. Cyclic cochains; 11. Cyclic cohomology; 12. Periodic cyclic homology; References; List of symbols; Index of notation; Subject index.