Writing for experimentalists, physicists, and theoretical and computational chemists, Barford (physics and astronomy, U. of Sheffield) examines the properties of conjugated polymers, explaining how electron-electron interactions and electron-lattice coupling determine the types and character of the low-lying electronic states, starting with the simplest approximations if noninteracting electronics. He covers pi-electron theories of conjugated polymers, noninteracting electrons and interacting electrons (including electron-lattice coupling in both cases), electrons and electronic processes in conjugated polymers, optical processes in conjugated polymers, linear polyenes and trans-polyacetylene, and light- emitting polymers.