  That excitons in solids might condense into a phase-coherent ground state was
proposed about 40 years ago, and has been attracting experimental and
theoretical attention ever since. Although experimental confirmation has been
hard to come by, the concepts released by this phenomenon have been widely
influential. This tutorial review discusses general aspects of the theory of
exciton and polariton condensates, focussing on the reasons for coherence in
the ground state wavefunction, the BCS to Bose crossover(s) for excitons and
for polaritons, and the relationship of the coherent condensates to standard
lasers.
