This book is an introduction to the theory of elliptic curves, ranging from its most elementary aspects to current research. This manuscript grew out of Tate's Haverford Lectures. For the second edition, the author has written three new chapters and there are also two new appendices which were written by S. Theisen and O. Forster.

From the reviews of the second edition:

"Husemöller's text was and is the great first introduction to the world of elliptic curves and a good guide to the current research literature as well. this second edition builds on the original in several ways. it has certainly gained a good deal of topicality, appeal, power of inspiration, and educational value for a wider public. No doubt, this text will maintain its role as both a useful primer and a passionate invitation to the evergreen theory of elliptic curves and their applications" (Werner Kleinert, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1040, 2004)

Inhalt
to Rational Points on Plane Curves.- Elementary Properties of the Chord-Tangent Group Law on a Cubic Curve.- Plane Algebraic Curves.- Elliptic Curves and Their Isomorphisms.- Families of Elliptic Curves and Geometric Properties of Torsion Points.- Reduction mod p and Torsion Points.- Proof of Mordell's Finite Generation Theorem.- Galois Cohomology and Isomorphism Classification of Elliptic Curves over Arbitrary Fields.- Descent and Galois Cohomology.- Elliptic and Hypergeometric Functions.- Theta Functions.- Modular Functions.- Endomorphisms of Elliptic Curves.- Elliptic Curves over Finite Fields.- Elliptic Curves over Local Fields.- Elliptic Curves over Global Fields and ?-Adic Representations.- L-Function of an Elliptic Curve and Its Analytic Continuation.- Remarks on the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture.- Remarks on the Modular Elliptic Curves Conjecture and Fermat's Last Theorem.- Higher Dimensional Analogs of Elliptic Curves: Calabi-Yau Varieties.- Families of Elliptic Curves.