Synopsis:
Frontiers of Life addresses fields of biology in terms of their frontiers--that is, the areas that will demand the most work in this new century. Because of their standing, the editors have been able to unite the most prestigious and well-informed authorities to place recent scientific advances into the context of their effects on daily human experiences and expectations. They ask, "What frontiers of the biological sciences will constitute the challenges of the next century?" Their first answer is an understanding of the processes and mechanisms that led to the origin of life. They take this answer as the starting point of the first section of the Encyclopedia. They thus proceed throughout the four volumes.
Separating this Encyclopedia form others is its multidisciplinary approach to the "frontiers" theme. While other encyclopedias strive to describe the past and present states of many subjects, Frontiers of Life offers the insights of world-class scientists into their subjects' growth areas.
Key Features
* Includes Advisory Board with each member a Nobel Laureate
* Written by contributors playing leading roles in their fields of expertise
* Contains almost 3,000 full color tables and figures, illustrating the 205 articles; color running heads and subtitles within each article make reading easy
* Presents biology as an organizing force of life in every article, from the cellular level to the interpersonal
Review:
"a magnificent four-volume encyclopedia of the life sciences...This set is specifically written for the professional scientist, the university student, and the serious layperson, and editor in chief Andrea Turchi of Treccani has done a masterful job in producing this elegant set for such a learned audience. This set reminds this reviewer of olden times, when each topic of an encyclopedia was assigned to a recognized leader in a field who produced an article of the highest quality, a far cry from the usual CD-ROM encyclopedia of today, which is typically just a compilation of facts by unknown authors... Each article is well illustrated with photographs, sketches, and graphs, and ends with a comprehensive bibliography. An extensive subject index can be found at the end of volume 4. This reviewer enthusiastically recommends this encyclopedia for any life science academic library as well as public libraries serving a scientific clientele."
―AMERICAN REFERENCE BOOKS ANNUAL
"A remarkable, eccentric, advanced treatise in four large quarto volumes, this set, which the publisher rightly does not call an encyclopedia, covers nine specific areas of contemporary biology... Each section contains about 20 articles, each 15 to 20 pages long, all by major authorities, with excellent and copious color illustrations, and usually 20-100 references, almost all earlier than 1997...The distinctive excellence of this work is found in the extraordinary high quality, readability, and wide-ranging sophistication of the individual articles, which despite the time lag in publication, will motivate well-prepared students to a wider exploration of fascinating subjects... Recommended enthusiastically to graduate or upper-division undergraduate collections."
―CHOICE
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