This book is strongly rooted in the quantum mechanics of transition metal ions, there is a tremendous amount to recommend it, and a fresh text that covers this material is sorely needed at this level. It is also refreshing to read a dense, nay meaty, text that directly opposes the current trend of the glossy presentation of very little—the “Science as Entertainment” approach. Transition metal ions are complicated, and there is some careful physics that needs to be understood before the richness of transition metal chemistry can be truly appreciated. This book certainly does justice to the subject.

There are some criticisms that may be made. The notation is not well thought through in places, and the diagrams are often badly drawn and unclear, often sufficiently so to obscure the underlying science. The treatment of some of the material is also a little hurried in places and another hundred or so pages to allow a fuller exposition would have been welcome. One is also left a little hungry in places for more detail; the discussion on magnetism in condensed phase and in coupled systems is short; the chapter on d configuration on stability is positively cursory. Expansion of some of the sections at the expense of some of the weaker sections would have been advantageous. Some of these criticisms should be mellowed with the fact that the book does not set out to be a comprehensive text for inorganic chemistry, simply to describe the transition metal ions.

This is a book that is thoroughly recommended for good final-year undergraduates and beginning graduate students and makes a useful adjunct to more descriptive and qualitative books. Ligand Field Theory and Its Applications is an excellent addition to the literature and, coupled with a good molecular orbital text, will make a good text for a complete inorganic structure and bonding course.