While maintaining the lucidity of the first edition, this edition includes many recent results on global stability, bifurcation, chaos, and fractals. The first five chapters provide the most comprehensive material on discrete dynamical systems, including trace-determinant stability, bifurcation analysis, and the detailed analysis of the center manifold theory. This edition also covers L-systems and the periodic structure of the bulbs in the Mandelbrot set as well as new applications in biology, chemistry, and physics.