Written for research chemists and advanced students of chemistry, this book discusses concepts, methods, starting materials, and some target molecules that are important to modern organic synthesis. It also describes applications to retrosynthetic analysis and introduces the design of synthetic plans. Criteria for the selection of methods were generality, simplicity, and didactic usefulness. The authors summarize important concepts at the beginning of each chapter. These include the synthon approach, systematic evaluation of the arrangement of functionality, strategies for achieving regio- and stereoselectivity in carbon-carbon bond formation and functional group conversions, strategies for enforcing thermodynamically unfavorable group conversions, and retro-synthetic analysis. The book also includes a list of commercially available starting materials. A selection of more complex procedures indicates the possibilities of organic synthesis.