This volume contains a number of research-expository articles that appeared in the Bulletin of the AMS between 1979 and 1984 and that address the general area of nonlinear functional analysis and global analysis and their applications. The central theme concerns qualitative methods in the study of nonlinear problems arising in applied mathematics, mathematical physics, and geometry. Since these articles first appeared, the methods and ideas they describe have been applied in an ever-widening array of applications. Readers will find this collection useful, as it brings together a range of influential papers by some of the leading researchers in the field.