Offering an alternative approach to multiparadigm programming concepts, this work presents the four major language paradigms - imperative, object-oriented, functional and logical - through a new, common language called Leda. It: introduces the important emerging topic of multiparadigm programming - a concept that could be characterized as "the best of" programming languages; provides a coherent basis for comparing multiple paradigms in a common framework through a single language; and gives both a technical overview and summaries on important topics in programming-language development.