This book is mainly devoted to the combinatorics of quadratic holomorphic dynamics. The conceptual kernel is a self-contained abstract counterpart of connected quadratic Julia sets which is built on Thurston's concept of a quadratic invariant lamination and on symbolic descriptions of the angle-doubling map. The theory obtained is illustrated in the complex plane. It is used to give rigorous proofs of some well-known and some partially new statements on the structure of the Mandelbrot set. The text is intended for graduate students and researchers. Some elementary knowledge in topology and in functions of one complex variable is assumed.
