Complex geometry is an old and rich field with its origin in the study of complex functions (which in the nineteenth century were considered as much more natural than real functions, for instance because complex polynomials always decompose into linear factors). Stein manifolds are affine complex manifolds. Classically, such manifolds are studied up to biholomorphism. This book is not concerned with this fine structure of Stein manifolds, but with their topological structure. The approach is through symplectic geometry. Symplectic geometry is a much younger field, with its roots in classical mechanics and Hamiltonian systems, where the phase spaces carry a canonical symplectic structure.
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