Description:This book provides an introduction to topological groups and the structure theory of locally compact abelian groups, with a special emphasis on Pontryagin-van Kampen duality, including a completely self-contained elementary proof of the duality theorem. Further related topics and applications are treated in separate chapters and in the appendix. A carefully-written introduction to topological groups Treats the structure theory of locally compact abelian groups Puts an emphasis on Pontryagin-van Kampen duality