  In these lecture notes we first assemble the basic ingredients of
supersymmetric gauge theories (particularly N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory),
supergravity, and superstring theory. Brane solutions are surveyed. The
geometry and symmetries of anti-de Sitter space are discussed. The AdS/CFT
correspondence of Maldacena and its application to correlation functions in the
the conformal phase of N=4 SYM are explained in considerable detail. A
pedagogical treatment of holographic RG flows is given including a review of
the conformal anomaly in four-dimensional quantum field theory and its
calculation from five-dimensional gravity. Problem sets and exercises await the
reader.
