  A brief historical review is made of the hadron-hadron (hh) total cross
section and hadron-nucleus absorption cross section measurements, made mainly
at high energy proton synchrotrons. Then I shall discuss low p_tprocesses,
including diffraction processes and fragmentation of nuclei in nucleus-nucleus
collisions. Nucleus-nucleus collisions at higher energy colliders are then
considered, mainly in the context of the search for the gluon quark plasma.
Conclusions and a short discussion on perspectives follow.
