Topics in Galois theory

This book is based on a course given by the author at Harvard University in the fall semester of 1988. The course focused on the inverse problem of Galois Theory: the construction of field extensions having a given finite group as Galois group. In the first part of the book, classical methods and results, such as the Scholz and Reichardt construction for p-groups, p != 2, as well as Hilbert's irreducibility theorem and the large sieve inequality, are presented. The second half is devoted to rationality and rigidity criteria and their application in realizing certain groups as Galois groups of