New superconductors: from granular to high T$_{c}$

How new are the high Tc superconductors, as compared to the conventional low Tc ones? In what sense are these oxides different from regular metals in their normal state? How different is the mechanism for high Tc superconductivity from the well-known electron-phonon interaction that explains so well superconductivity in metals and alloys? What are the implications of the new features of the high Tc oxides for their practical applications? This book aims to give some answers to those questions, drawing particularly on similarities between the high Tc oxides and granular superconductors, which also present a maximum of their critical temperature near the metal-insulator transition.