Analytic Functions

Book excerpt: The present monograph on analytic functions coincides to a lar[extent with the presentation of the modern theory of single-value analytic functions given in my earlier works "Le theoreme de Picarc Borel et la theorie des fonctions meromorphes" (Paris: Gauthier-Villar 1929) and "Eindeutige analytische Funktionen" (Die Grundlehren dt mathematischen Wissenschaften in Einzeldarstellungen, VoL 46, 1: edition Berlin: Springer 1936, 2nd edition Berlin-Gottingen-Heidelberg Springer 1953). In these presentations I have strived to make the individual result and their proofs readily understandable and to treat them in the ligh of certain guiding principles in a unified way. A decisive step in thi direction within the theory of entire and meromorphic functions consiste- in replacing the classical representation of these functions through ca nonical products with more general tools from the potential theor (Green's formula and especially the Poisson-Jensen formula). On thi foundation it was possible to introduce the quantities (the characteristic the proximity and the counting functions) which are definitive for th