A noncommutative
Radon-Nikodym theorem is developed in the context of ∗-algebras. Previous results
in this direction have assumed a dominance condition which results in a bounded
“Radon-Nikodym derivative”. The present result achieves complete generality by only
assuming absolute continuity and in this case the “Radon-Nikodym derivative” may
be unbounded. A Lebesgue decomposition theorem is established in the Banach
∗-algebra case.