  This review provides the necessary background from astrophysics, nuclear, and
particle physics to understand the cosmic origin of the chemical elements. It
reflects the year 2009 state of the art in this extremely quickly developing
interdisciplinary research direction. The discussion summarizes the
nucleosynthetic processes in the course of the evolution of the Universe and
the galaxies contained within, including primordial nucleosynthesis, stellar
evolution, and explosive nucleosynthesis in single and binary systems.
