The effect which now bears his name, was discovered in 1958 by Rudolf Mössbauer at the Technical University of Munich. It soon became apparent that Mössbauer spectroscopy had applications in such diverse fields as general relativity, solid state physics, chemistry, materials science, biology, medical physics, archeology and art. The present volume reviews the historical development of the Mössbauer effect, the experimental details, the basic physics of hyperfine interactions and some of the numerous applications of Mössbauer effect spectroscopy.