Polymer International 42 (1997) 345

Book Reviews

Polymer yearbook 12Edited by R. A. Pethrick.Harwood Academic Publishers, Reading, 1995.pp. vi] 336, price £150.00, US$250.00.ISBN 3-7186-5712-0

The Polymer yearbook is intended as “an annual desk referencefeaturing pertinent data, mini-reviews and useful informationfor polymer scientistsÏ. It achieves this objective with distinc-tion. This current edition retains the well established format,being divided into three parts, namely the “Review sectionÏ,“Progress in polymer science in JapanÏ and “Current aware-nessÏ.

The review section comprises eight contributions, extendingto 195 pages and citing a total of 612 references, the mostrecent being from 1993. The reviews, on topics generallybiased towards polymer physical chemistry, are conciseand well presented. “Kinetics of template polymerisationÏ, byPolowinski and Ferguson, and “New frontiers in spin probe

and spin label EPR spectroscopy of polymersÏ, by Wassermanand Khazanovich, are particularly distinguished.

The second part of the book, Progress in polymer science inJapan, contains 14 brief reviews of papers presented at the42nd Annual Meeting (Spring) and Symposium (Fall) of theSociety of Polymer Science Japan (1993). Topics coveredinclude “Photosensitive polymersÏ, “Poly(ethylene oxide)s :simple but key polymers for molecular architecture andionicsÏ, “Chemical and physical properties of the interfaceÏ and“Polymer dynamics and rheologyÏ. The third, concluding, partof the book, Current awareness, is subdivided into “Pub-lications in polymer scienceÏ, which lists full bibliographicdata for 171 books published over the period 1990È94, and“Dissertation abstracts, which contains 276 classiÐedentries. In summary, this book should prove to be of greatvalue to the practising polymer scientist, to whom it is highlyrecommended.

M. D. Purbrick

1Polymer International 0959-8103/97/$09.00 1997 SCI. Printed in Great Britain(