The series ‘The Chemistry of Functional Groups’ was originally planned to cover in each volume all aspects of the chemistry of one of the important functional groups in organic chemistry. The emphasis is laid on the preparation, properties and reactions of the functional group treated and on the effects which it exerts both in the immediate vicinity of the group in question and in the whole molecule. A voluntary restriction on the treatment of the various functional groups in these volumes is that material included in easily and generally available secondary or tertiary sources, such as Chemical Reviews, Quarterly Reviews, Organic Reactions, various ‘Advances’ and ‘Progress’ series and in textbooks (i.e. in books which are usually found in the chemical libraries of most universities and research institutes), should not, as a rule, be repeated in detail, unless it is necessary for the balanced treatment of the topic. Therefore each of the authors is asked not to give an encyclopaedic coverage of his subject, but to concentrate on the most important recent developments and mainly on material that has not been adequately covered by reviews or other secondary sources by the time of writing of the chapter, and to address himself to a reader who is assumed to be at a fairly advanced postgraduate level.