BULLETIN OF MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES, vol.3, no.1, pp.73-131, 2013 (SCI-Expanded)
The goal of this article is to study results and examples concerning finitely presented covers of finitely generated amenable groups. We collect examples of groups G with the following properties: (i) G is finitely generated, (ii) G is amenable, e.g. of intermediate growth, (iii) any finitely presented group with a quotient isomorphic to G contains non-abelian free subgroups, or the stronger (iii') any finitely presented group with a quotient isomorphic to G is large.