  The high-redshift (z>2) galaxies discovered over the last few years with the
Lyman-break technique represent, in number density, a major fraction of the
galaxies known in the Local Universe. Thus, understanding the properties and
the nature of these high-redshift systems is instrumental to our understanding
of the cosmic evolution of galaxies and their stellar content. I briefly review
the observed characteristics of the Lyman-break galaxies, relate these galaxies
to their most likely low-redshift counterparts, and discuss the implications of
dust obscuration on the global properties of the Lyman-break population.
Finally, the observational properties of the high-redshift population are set
in the framework of a simple evolutionary model for the stellar, metal and dust
content of galaxies, to derive the intrinsic star formation history of the
Universe.
