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Although the first substituted silane polymers were probably prepared in the 1920s, these and related ma-terials were poorly characterized, were intractable, and elicited little scientific interest for almost 50 years. The synthesis of the first soluble, high molecular weight materials in the late 1970s has caused an explosive re-birth ofinterest in polysilanes that continues today. This review deals mainly with developments that have occurred during the modern era of polysilane studies beginning around 1975. It attempts to treatin a com-prehensive fashion the synthesis of homo-and co-polymers, including mechanistic studies, modern theo-retical treatments describing conformational predic-tions, studies of the electronic structure of ground and excited states, UV-visible and emission spectroscopic studies, various aspects of polymer structure both in solution and in the solid state, the photochemistry of substituted silane …