Questions tagged [vanishing-cycles]

Once in a while I run into literature that invokes vanishing cycle machinery with a cryptic sentence like, "this follows from a standard vanishing cycle argument." Is there a good way to look at ...

To quote one source among many, "the general reference for vanishing cycles is [SGA 7] XIII and XV". Is there a more direct way to learn the main principles of this theory (i.e. without the language ...