This document provides an overview and primer on REST (REpresentational State Transfer) architectural style for building web services. It discusses key REST concepts like resources identified by URIs, use of standard HTTP methods like GET, PUT, POST, DELETE, stateless communication, and representation of resources in different formats like XML and JSON. It also describes how the JAX-RS API in Java maps to these REST concepts through annotations and allows building RESTful web services and APIs in a declarative way.