Topology of plane arrangements and their complements

This paper is a glossary of notions and methods related to the topological theory of affine plane arrangements, including braid groups, configuration spaces, order complexes, stratified Morse theory, simplicial resolutions, c omplexes of graphs, Orlik-Solomon rings, Salvetti complexes, matroids, Span ier-Whitehead duality, twisted homology groups, monodromy theory, and multi dimensional hypergeometric functions. The emphasis is upon making the prese ntation as geometric as possible. Applications and analogies in differentia l topology are outlined, and some recent results of the theory are presente d.