The order here is deliberate and slightly unkind. You get the practical mechanics first, so the vocabulary stops being a barrier, and then immediately the strongest available argument that most acquisitions destroy value. That sequence exists because enthusiasm is the expensive part of a first acquisition, and it is much cheaper to have it tested by a book than by a deal.
Start here for the mechanics: how the process actually runs, in order, in plain language.
Now the cold water. The argument that acquirers systematically overpay for synergies that never arrive.
An hour of lecture treating acquisitiveness as a cognitive bias. Watch it before your next conversation with a seller.
Having been warned, this is the disciplined version: four decisions that separate the deals that work.
Case studies in failure. Pattern recognition you would otherwise buy with your own money.
You will be able to hold your own with a banker, recognize the two or three ways this specific deal could hurt you, and articulate why you are buying rather than only what you are buying.