Conceptually, Operative Surgery–Ear held promise. An international array of noted otologic surgeons, writing on topics of individual interest, should provide a finished work broad in scope and appeal. The completed text, in this instance, does not achieve the aforementioned.
Contributing authors were given a free hand in their manuscripts. As such, repetition is excessive. Typifying the former is the repetition regarding the preparation and basic surgical approach to the mastoid, both written and diagrammatic. The topics would have been best covered as separate entities in a specific chapter, wherein variations in techniques could have been easily contrasted.
The text seemed to lack direction in terms of defining the prospective reader. Certain chapters were exceptional—detailed as to surgical indications, operative technique, and results, as well as postoperative care. Almost uniformly these were the same chapters with exceptional pictorial documentation. The aforementioned make the text a worthwhile library reference. Conversely, several