In the mid-1960s, several Italian mathematicians began to study the connections between classical arguments in commutative algebra and algebraic geometry, and the contemporaneous development of algebraic $K$-theory in the U.S. These connections were exemplified by the work of Andreotti-Bombieri, Salmon, and Traverso on seminormality, and by Bass-Murthy on the Picard groups of polynomial rings. Interactions proceeded far beyond this initial point to encompass Chow groups of singular varieties, complete intersections, and applications of $K$-theory to arithmetic and real geometry.
This volume contains the proceedings from a U.S.--Italy Joint Summer Seminar, which focused on this circle of ideas. The conference, held in June 1989 in Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy, was supported jointly by the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and the National Science Foundation. The book contains contributions from some of the leading experts in this area.
