Since the pioneering work of Dixmier and Segal in the early 50’s, the theory of noncommutative LP-spaces has grown into a very refined and important theory with wide applications. Despite this fact there is as yet no self-contained peer-reviewed introduction to the most general version of this theory in print. The present work aims to fill this vacuum, in the process giving fresh impetus to the theory. The first part of the book presents: the introductory theory of von Neumann algebr...