The book provides a comprehensive treatment of the physics of hysteresis in magnetism, and of the mathematical tools used to describe it. The relations of hysteresis to Maxwell's equations, equilibrium and non equilibrium thermodynamics, non-linear system dynamics, micromagnetics and domain theory are discussed from a unified viewpoint.

These aspects are then applied to the interpretation of magnetization reversal mechanisms: coherent rotation and switching in magnetic particles, stochastic domain wall motion and the Barkhausen effect, coercivity mechanisms and magnetic viscosity, rate-dependent hysteresis and eddy-current losses.

The book is aimed at researchers and graduate students in physics, who are interested in magnetism and magnetic materials, and, more generally, in the physics of hysteresis phenomena, materials scientists and engineers working on the development and application of magnetic materials, and mathematicians investigating the mathematical structure of hysteresis non-linearities.