Globular star clusters are observed to lose mass, but how
long canthey survive? This talk takes a historical approach, beginning with
the earliest theories on isolated clusters of identical stars.Surprising new
results will be presented on this old problem. Then we
turn to multi-mass clusters in a steady tidal field, where recent research has
revised some long-standing ideas and changes details of
our view of how globular cluster systems evolve. Finally we review some recent
research on the hardest but most realistic problem:
clusters in unsteady tidal fields caused by eccentric galactic orbits.
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