Providing a picture of modern physical optics as an expert would see it, this clear exposition of the most useful ideas of optics will be accessible to undergraduate students. This textbook covers both classical and modern optics and is based on a course offered by Moscow State University in recent years - the main objective of which was to provide a comprehensive presentation of the fundamentals of the subject. Containing a much higher proportion of topical material than conventional textbooks the contents include electromagnetic theory of light, optical radiation physics and the physics of interaction of radiation with matter. Among the contemporary topics discussed most comprehensively are lasers, nonlinear optics, and new methods of optical spectroscopy.