Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Introduction to developmental biology -- Introduction to animal development -- Genes and development: introduction and techniques -- Cellular basis of morphogenesis: differential cell affinity -- Patterns of development -- Fertilization: beginning a new organism -- Cleavage: creating multicellularity -- Gastrulation: reorganizing the embryonic cells -- Early vertebrate development: neurulation and the ectoderm -- Axonal specificity -- Early vertebrate development: mesoderm and endoderm -- Mechanisms of cellular differentiation. Transcriptional regulation of gene expression: transcription factors and the activation of specific promoters -- Transcriptional regulation of gene expression: the activation of chromatin -- Control of development by RNA processing -- Translational regulation of developmental processes -- Specification of cell fate and the embryonic axes -- Autonomous cell specification by cytoplasmic determinants -- Genetics of axis specification in Drosophila -- Specification of cell fate by progressive cell-cell interactions. Constructing the mammalian embryo: establishment of body axes and the mechanisms of teratogenesis -- Cellular interactions during organ formation -- Proximate tissue interactions: secondary induction -- Development of the tetrapod limb -- Cell interactions at a distance: hormones as mediators of development -- Sex determination -- Saga of the germ line -- Developmental mechanisms of evolutionary change.