An extensive and technically accessible overview of the field.
Since its origin in the nineteenth century, the science of thermodynamics has been concerned with the transformations of energy and its unavoidable dissipation into heat according to thermodynamics’ first (conservation) and second (entropy) laws. Also since its inception, thermodynamics has focused on phenomena taking place at or near equilibrium in energetically isolated systems. A new development occurred however in the second half of the twentieth century with the rise of far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics, especially through the pioneering work of Ilya Prigogine (Nobel Prize 1977) on the evolution of dissipative structures in systems open to energy fluxes.
These structures are characterized by:
Examples include:
Into the Cool: energy flow, thermodynamics, and life by Some current treatments with extensive bibliographies:
Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics and the Production of Entropy by 
Experimental Thermodynamics Volume X by 
Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics by 
Friction-Induced Vibrations and Self-Organization by 
Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics of Heterogeneous Systems by 