Volume 18 continues the Reviews in Modern Astronomy with twelve invited reviews and highlight contributions which were presented during the International Scientific Conference of the Astronomical Society on the topic «From Cosmological Structures to the Milky Way», held in Prague, Czech Republic, September 20 to 25, 2004. The contributions to the meeting published in this volume discuss, among other subjects, X-ray astronomy, cosmology, star formation and the Galactic Centre.