Introduction II

In Part II we discuss the deformation theory of monoidal categories brought to light by the author in collaboration with Crane [13], and the closely related infinitessimal deformation theories for monoidal functors and braided monoidal categories. We do not deal with the global aspects of categorical deformation theory whose invesigation was begun independently by Davydov [14] and in the special case of categorifications of group algebras and their quantum doubles by Crane and the author [13] …