TITLE: Suggestions for good books on class field theory
QUESTION [26 upvotes]: Recently I tried to learn class field theory, but I find it is difficult. I have read the book "Algebraic Number Theory" by J. W. S. Cassels and A. Frohlich. In the book, the approach to class field theory is cohomology of groups. Although I have learned cohomology of groups, I find that those theorems in the book are complicated and can not form a system.
I'm wondering what are people's opinions of the book above, can you give me some suggestions on learning class field theory, and could you recommend some good books on class field theory?

REPLY [4 votes]: I'm a beginner with basically no background in algebraic number theory, and am close to finishing  Number Theory 2: Introduction to Class Field Theory by Kato, Kurokawa, Saito. 
I love this book - it does a good job explaining the big pictures of number theory (e.g. the local-global philosophy) and providing motivation. It begins with concrete examples of what class field theory says - this is one thing I wanted. Throughout the book, they state theorems and their consequences and postpone the proofs, but still give proofs eventually. I really like this style, as it prevents getting bogged down in proofs. The last section claims to outline the proof of the main theorems of class field theory, but I haven't read it yet. I have not read Volume 1, and was able to get through Volume 2 without any difficulty.