Presents a unified, non-formal way of thinking about strong correlation phenomena that has long been shared by experimentalists and theoreticians in the field. Contains chapters on atoms, ions, and molecules, crystal field theory, Mott transition and the Hubbard model, Mott insulators, Heisenberg magnets, itinerant electron magnetism, ferromagnetism in Hubbard models, the Gutzwiller variational method, the correlated metallic state, mixed valence and heavy fermions, and the quantum Hall effect. Includes chapter problems and answers, and appendices on the hydrogen atom, single-spin-flip ansatz, the Gutzwiller approximation, and the Schrieffer-Wolff transformation. The author is affiliated with the Research Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics in Budapest. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)