The science of complexity is concerned with the study of complex, adaptive systems. Its insights have in recent decades been applied with gusto by social scientists and other thinkers.

As research in and around the application of complexity science flourishes as never before, this new five-volume collection from Routledge meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of a rapidly growing—and ever more complex—corpus of literature. Edited by leading scholars, the collection gathers foundational and canonical work, together with innovative and cutting-edge applications and interventions.

With a full index, together with new introductions to each volume, which place the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Complexity is an essential work of reference. The collection will be particularly useful as an essential database allowing scattered and often fugitive material to be easily located. It will also be welcomed as a crucial tool permitting rapid access to less familiar—and sometimes overlooked—texts. For researchers, students, practitioners, and policy-makers, it is as a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.