This accessible, undergraduate-level text illustrates the role of algebras of holomorphic functions in the solution of an important engineering problem: the stabilization of a linear control system. Its concise and self-contained treatment avoids the use of higher mathematics and forms a bridge to more advanced treatments.

The treatment consists of two components: the algebraic framework, which serves as the abstract language for posing and solving the problem of stabilization; and the analysis component, which examines properties of specific rings of holomorphic functions. Elementary, self-contained, and constructive proofs elucidate the explorations of rings of holomorphic functions relevant in control theory. Introductory chapters on control theory and stable transfer functions are followed by surveys of unstable plants and the stabilization problem and its solution. The text concludes with suggestions for further reading and a bibliography.