This document provides an introduction to RESTful web services. It defines REST and its architectural principles including addressing resources with URIs, using a uniform and constrained interface, focusing on representations of resources, stateless communication, and hypermedia as the engine of application state. It discusses implementing RESTful services with Java using JAX-RS annotations and frameworks like Jersey and CXF. It also covers testing REST APIs, content negotiation, error handling, versioning, and security considerations.