Topology and cosmology

The 1997 Cleveland Workshop on Topology and Cosmology was a remarkable opportunity for mathematicians and cosmologist with overlapping interests in the topology of 3-space to discuss the state of knowledge in their fields. This special issue reflects the wide range of talks given at the conference including both introductions/reviews of the relevant fields of mathematics and cosmology and new contributions to the scholarship in these fields. In this introduction to the special issue, a brief history is given of the study of the topology of the universe. Some attempt is also made to introduce and discuss each of the papers in the collection and to relate them to each other and to the wider conversation on the global topology of the universe.