This volume, written by someone who has made many significant contributions to mathematical physics, not least to the present dialogue between mathematicians and physicists, aims to present some of the basic material in algebraic topology at the level of a fairly sophisticated theoretical physics graduate student.

This Lecture Notes volume is the fruit of two research-level summer schools jointly organized by the GTEM node at Lille University and the team of Galatasaray University (Istanbul): "Geometry and Arithmetic of Moduli Spaces of Coverings (2008)" and "Geometry and Arithmetic around Galois Theory (2009)". The volume focuses on geometric methods in Galois theory. The choice of the editors is to provide a complete and comprehensive account of modern points of view on Galois theory and related moduli problems, using stacks, gerbes and groupoids. It contains lecture notes on étale fundamental group and fundamental group scheme, and moduli stacks of curves and covers. Research articles complete the collection.