The idea of holding this Symposium has its origin in a conversation with G. Con to­ poulos during the winter of 1973. It was then clear that the progress realized in Stellar Dynamics since the Thessaloniki symposium had given a new shape to the field. Other meetings such as the C. N. R. S. colloquium held in Paris in 1967 or the LA. V. colloquium held in Cambridge, England, in 1970 had in the meantime given opportunities to review the advances achieved in several branches of this field. We thought that time had come to organize a general confrontation of the new results obtained in the approach of the gravitational N-body problem by different methods, in the investigation of spherical and flattened systems, in the comparisons with ob­ servations and in more theoretical speculations on orbits, integrals of motion, dense nuclei or relativistic stellar dynamics. Things were made easy by the support of Commissions 33 and 37 which welcomed the proposition and by 1. R. King who accepted to act as Chairman of the Scientific Organizing Committee. The final decision to meet in Besan'Yon was taken during the XVth General Assembly of the LA. U. in Sydney in August 1973. The members of the Organizing Committee were: 1. R. King (Chairman), G. Con­ topoulos, A. Hayli, M. Henon, G. Hori, D. Lynden-Bell, L. Perek, L. Spitzer, R. Wielen, Ya. Zel'dovich while the members of the Local Committee were: A.