The idea for this book was born in early 2001. I was preparing for an IEEE workshop on the subject of optical switching. It was the second in a series of annual optical networking workshops I have developed for the two flagship conferences of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc), namely the International Conference on Communications (ICC) and the Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM). The call for participation was circulating when Alex Greene, then Senior Publisher with Kluwer Academic Publishers, saw it and called me to ask if I would be interested in editing or authoring a book on optical switching. I met Alex afterwards in March 2001 at the Optical Fiber Communications Conference (OFC) in Anaheim, California, where we discussed this idea further. The task was big and challenging. Nevertheless, the motivation to pursue this project, for a scientist interested in optical switching, was also strong.