In many clinical fields, available texts are explicitly oriented towards medical students, and are therefore simple, succinct, and necessarily abbreviated. The larger works in the field tend to be reference volumes—detailed, comprehensive, and incorporating not only the experience of the authors but the best of the pertinent literature, both past and present. It is David Sutton's contention that these two approaches leave a gap that has not been satisfactorily filled, at least in radiology. In his A Textbook of Radiology, therefore, he has focused on an intermediate area useful to advanced trainees and younger radiologists in practice, while incorporating all divisions of radiology into a single volume.
The first edition of this text appeared in 1969 and was greeted with enthusiasm. Now, six years later, the second edition represents an updating of the first, with new chapters and many new illustrations. Although it is a single volume, it is