Hysteresis effects occur in science and engineering: plasticity, ferromagnetism, ferroelectricity are well-known examples. This volume provides a self-contained and comprehensive introduction to the analysis of hysteresis models, and illustrates several new results in this field.

Reader's Guide.- Historical Notes.- I. Genesis of Hysteresis.- II. Rheological and Circuital Models.- III. Plays, Stops and Prandtl-Ishlinski? Models.- IV. The Preisach Model.- V. The Duhem Model.- VI. Discontinuous Hysteresis.- VII. P.D.E. Models of Elasto-Plasticity.- VIII. Hysteresis and Semigroups.- IX. Quasilinear P.D.E.s with Memory.- X. Semilinear P.D.E.s with Memory.- XI. P.D.E.s with Discontinuous Hysteresis.- XII. Some Tools.- Conclusion.