The text begins with a two-chapter introduction covering the history and present status of atomic spectroscopy and a broad overview of atomic spectroscopic theory, instrumentation, and practice. The first of these chapters provides a useful glossary of general analytical chemistry terminology and a glossary of terms more specific to atomic spectroscopy. Placing the glossary at the beginning of the text ensures that the readers and authors share a common vocabulary. The second introductory chapter provides a general overview of theory, including issues such as spectral linewidths and the Zeeman effect. Also covered in this chapter are basic instrumental components, methods for introducing the sample, and calibration strategies. For the novice student of atomic spectroscopy, these introductory chapters help in making accessible the more technically demanding chapters that follow.

Following the introductory chapters, the authors use five chapters to cover several important atomic spectroscopic techniques. Chapter 3 is a lengthy and detailed review of atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), including flame and electrothermal atomization, sources of spectral interference, methods for background correction, and special sample introduction methods, such as hydride generation and the cold vapor technique. One of the strengths of this chapter is the inclusion of many practical applications of atomic absorption spectrometry. After a 122-page chapter on AAS, flame atomic emission (AES) spectrometry merits a chapter of only two pages. Given that flame AAS and flame AES are complimentary techniques that share a common instrumental platform, it might make sense to combine the two techniques into a single chapter. Plasma AES and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) are covered in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6, respectively. Given the importance of these two techniques in the modern analytical lab, it is somewhat surprising that they receive substantially less coverage than AAS. Noticeably absent from these two chapters is a discussion of analytical applications. This is not the case in Chapter 7, which covers atomic fluorescence spectrometry.

The text ends with four short chapters covering miscellaneous topics. The best of these is Chapter 8, which covers sample preparation, a topic that rarely appears in texts on analytical techniques. Other chapters discuss the use of atomic spectroscopy as a detector for gas chromatography and for liquid chromatography (Chapter 9), evaluate the relative advantages of atomic spectrometric methods (Chapter 9), and offer suggestions for further reading (Chapter 10).

New to this edition is a discussion of nebulizers for small sample volumes in plasma AES, a more thorough discussion of laser ablation sample introduction for ICP-MS, methods for eliminating spectral interferences in ICP-MS, and the use of atomic spectroscopy as a chromatographic detector. Additional changes involve the reorganization of some content from the chapter on flame AAS to the chapter on atomic spectroscopy theory.

Overall, the writing is too terse and the text is too detailed to make it useful as a primary textbook for an undergraduate course, although it could serve as an additional resource made available as a library reserve. The lack of references—other than those included in figures and tables—is a surprising omission that makes the text less useful as a graduate textbook or as a resource for research workers. The text is a useful addition to college and university libraries, although the small amount of new material may not make it a compelling choice for a library whose collection includes the first edition.