This monograph covers topics in the cohomology of monoids up through recent developments. Jonathan Leech’s original monograph in the Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society dates back to 1975.

This book is an organized, accessible, and self-contained account of this cohomology that includes more recent significant developments that were previously scattered among various publications, along with completely new material. It summarizes the original Leech theory and provides a modern and thorough treatment of the cohomological classification of coextensions of both monoids and monoidal groupoids, including the case of monoids with operators.

This cohomology is also compared to the classical Eilenberg-Mac Lane and Hochschild-Mitchell cohomologies. Connections are also established with the Lausch-Loganathan cohomology theory for inverse semigroups, the Gabriel-Zisman cohomology of simplicial sets, the Wells cohomology of small categories (also known as Baues-Wirschingcohomology), Grothendieck sheaf cohomology, and finally Beck’s triple cohomology.

It also establishes connections with Grillet’s cohomology theory for commutative semigroups. The monograph is aimed at researchers in the theory of monoids, or even semigroups, and its interface with category theory, homological algebra, and related fields.

However, it is also written to be accessible to graduate students in mathematics and mathematicians in general. .