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Analytic continuation extends a holomorphic function by holomorphic elements agreeing on overlaps; along a path, a chain of overlapping neighbourhoods transports the initial element. The identity theorem makes compatible continuation unique on connected overlaps, although different paths can lead to different branches.

Choose the principal complex logarithm and the slit domain $D=\mathbb{C}\setminus [1,\infty )$. On $D$, the functionis holomorphic, with the removable value $h(0)=1$. The domain $D$ is simply connected, so $h$ has a primitive and its integral from $0$ to $z$ is independent of the path in $D$. For $|z|<1$, the uniformly convergent power series on compact subdiscs givesTherefore $f$ is a single-valued analytic continuation of the dilogarithm to $\mathbb{C}\setminus [1,\infty )$. The apparent problem at $0$ is removable; $1$ is a genuine branch point, even though the function has a finite one-sided limit there, because its derivative has a logarithmic singularity. Other cuts from $1$ to infinity give corresponding branches.