本书共包括5章内容，第1章包含了对基本相互作用的简要概述，同时也提出了经典场作为相互作用介体的概念；第2章提出了标量场理论的基本概念，即简谐振子链的连续极限，还介绍了四维矢量表示法及其作为构造和使用洛伦兹不变量数量的便捷表示法；第3章探讨了麦克斯韦方程组以拉格朗日形式重铸，并使用经典场论的形式主义探索了电荷和电流之间的相互作用；第4章则阐述了通过类比电磁学来建立杨-米尔斯理论；第5章着重介绍了重力。本书适合高等院校师生、相关专业的爱好者及研究者参考阅读。

Preface
Acknowledgements
Author biography
1 Motivation and introduction
1.1 The four fundamental interactions
1.1.1 Electromagnetism
1.1.2 Strong and weak nuclear forces
1.1.3 Gravity
1.2 Particle exchange and force mediation
1.3 Examining a simple model
1.4 Relativity emerges
1.5 The necessity of fields and a conundrum
1.6 Exercises
References
2 Basics of scalar field theory
2.1 From oscillators to fields
2.2 Lagrange and Hamilton
2.3 Hamiltonian with sources
2.4 The attractive Yukawa potential
2.5 Some relativistic technology
2.6 Relativistic field theories
2.7 Exercises
References
3 Electromagnetism
3.1 Maxwell's equations
3.2 Lagrangian formulation
3.3 Why like charges repel: the Coulomb potential
3.4 Resolution of a conundrum and magnetic energy
3.5 The electric field in arbitrary spatial dimensions
3.6 Propagation of interactions
3.7 Electromagnetic duality and magnetic monopoles
3.8 Gauge invariance
3.9 Exercises
References
4 Yang-Mills theory
4.1 From Maxwell to Yang-Mills
4.2 Nonabelian gauge theory formalism
4.3 The static potential
4.4 The strong nuclear interaction
4.5 Classical color charge dynamics
4.6 Effective static quark-antiquark potential
4.7 Electroweak unification and Higgs mechanism
4.8 Exercises
References
5 Gravity as a field theory
5.1 The trouble with Newtonian gravity
5.2 Constructing an appropriate field theory
5.3 Emergence of Newton's law of gravity
5.4 Interactions of light and matter
5.5 A glimpse at general relativity
5.6 Gravity with extra, compactified dimensions
5.7 Exercises
References
Appendix A: Mathematical results
编辑手记