Topological Invariants of Stratified Spaces

The central theme of this book is the restoration of Poincare duality on stratified singular spaces by using Verdier-self-dual sheaves such as the prototypical intersection chain sheaf on a complex variety. Highlights include complete and detailed proofs of decomposition theorems for self-dual sheaves, explanation of methods for computing twisted characteristic classes and an introduction to the author's theory of non-Witt spaces and Lagrangian structures.