Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction and motivation. The field of high-energy astrophysics -- Energies, luminosities, and timescales -- Atmospheric absorption -- Experimental tools of high energy astrophysics -- High-energy telescopes -- The high-energy sky. X-ray maps up to 10 keV -- The sky between 10 keV and 1 MeV -- Surveys up to 30 MeV -- The highest energy maps produced in earth orbit -- Relativity. Special relativity -- Relativistic transformation of physical laws -- General relativity -- Static spacetimes -- Particle acceleration. Gravity -- Electromagnetic fields -- Fermi acceleration --

Radiative processes. The radiation field -- Intensity -- Thermal Bremsstrahlung -- Single particle synchrotron emissivity -- Thermal synchrotron -- Nonthermal synchrotron -- Compton scattering -- Accretion of plasma. Hydrodynamics -- Bondi-Hoyle accretion -- Roche lobe geometry in binaries and accretion from a companion star -- Formation of a disk. Accretion disk theory -- Viscosity and radial disk structure -- Standard thin disk theory -- Accretion columns -- Two-temperature thin disks -- Thick accretion disks. Thick-disk structure -- Radiatively inefficient flows --

Pulsing sources. Radio pulsars -- X-ray pulsars -- Cataclysmic variables -- Black holes in binaries. Early discovery of black holes -- The archetypal HMXB Cygnus X-1 -- X-ray Novae -- QPOs in black-hole binaries -- Bursting stars. X-ray burst sources -- Gamma-ray burst sources -- Supermassive black holes in AGNs. Their discovery and identification -- Nearby objects -- Supermassive black holes in AGNs -- The high-energy background. Cosmic rays -- Galaxy clusters -- Diffuse emission.

This textbook covers all the essentials, weaving together the latest theory with the experimental techniques, instrumentation, and observational methods astronomers use to study high-energy radiation from space.