We review the development of the large $N$ method, where $N$ indicates the number of flavours, used to study perturbative and nonperturbative properties of quantum field theories. The relevant historical background is summarized as a prelude to the introduction of the large $N$ critical point formalism. This is used to compute large $N$ corrections to $d$-dimensional critical exponents of the universal quantum field theory present at the Wilson-Fisher fixed point. While pedagogical in part the application to gauge theories is also covered and the use of the large $N$ method to complement explicit high order perturbative computations in gauge theories is also highlighted. The usefulness of the technique in relation to other methods currently used to study quantum field theories in $d$-dimensions is also summarized.
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