p-adic differential equations

the long version

"Over the last 50 years the theory of p-adic differential equations has grown into an active area of research in its own right, and has important applications to number theory and to computer science. This book, the first comprehensive and unified introduction to the subject, improves and simplifies existing results as well as including original material. Based on a course given by the author at MIT, this modern treatment is accessible to graduate students and researchers. Exercises are included at the end of each chapter to help the reader review the material, and the author also provides detailed references to the literature to aid further study"-- "Although the very existence of a highly developed theory of p-adic ordinary differential equations is not entirely well known even within number theory, the subject is actually almost 50 years old. Here are circumstances, past and present, in which it arises"--