Heavy quark effective theory

After a brief introduction, the results of application of the heavy quark effective theory to semileptonic decays of beta mesons are discussed. A nearly-model-independent extraction of {vert_bar}V{sub cb}{vert_bar} from data is described. Application of the effective theory to inclusive semileptonic decays of heavy mesons, in semileptonic decays of heavy baryons, and to the nonleptonic decays of hadrons are outlined. The authors conclude by mentioning other areas of research in this very active field