158 BOOK REVIEWS

climate change. Chapter 30 on sedimentary basins is avery welcome addition to the book . The coverage in thefirst dozen chapters on minerals, rocks , and tectonics isalso much improved, as is the chapter on Earth history.Despite the use of many different contributors the texthas a strong common style and is very well written,which is perhaps attributable to the editorial skills ofDr Duff.

On the other hand, the revision has produced amassive tome which has an excessive weight which nodoubt will have students claiming industrial injuries! At791 A4 pages, the book is unwieldy, and our review copyalready shows signs of wear. Gone are the days when acopy of Holmes' book could be handed down from onegeneration of students to the next. The colour photo­graphs in the centre of the text, some of which arevisually impressive, add little to the volume as a wholeand could be dropped. This would have presumablyreduced the price of an already expensive volume. Asmentioned above, the geological chapters have beenwell updated and reflect modern opinion and views, butunfortunately less care appears to have been taken inupdating some of the geomorphological chapters whichwere in vital needofa revision. For example, the chapterof glacial processes is excellent and reflects modernprocess geomorphology yet, by contrast, the chapter onrivers does not. The level of sophistication betweenchapters was variable in the third edition but is evenmore noticeable in the current one. There are also manyworrying errors within the text. Recently we received asheet of errata for the volume, from Dr Duff, which isover 4 pages long. Perhaps the most notable error is thaton page 648, where two of the three types of platemargin are wrongly described: according to the text aconvergent margin is 'where new ocean crust is formed ,and plates grow'!

In summary, the revised Holmes' provides excellentcoverage of the subject area and its revision has beenundertaken with considerable success, but has resultedin an overlarge and unwieldy volume.

So how do these two volumes measure up to the idealcriteria introduced at the start?

1. Price. At £19.50 The Dynamic Earth is not badvalue for a colour book. In contrast, Holmes'Principles of Physical Geology at £24.95 may be outof the price range of many students, although its sizemay at least give an impression of value for money.

2. Size. The Dynamic Earth scores well against thiscriterion since it is easy to handle and work from.Holmes' Principles ofPhysical Geology on the otherhand is too unwieldy to be carried about, is difficultto read from and it is clear that the spine will sufferdue to its size.

3. Visually interesting. The Dynamic Earth is anattractive glossy book with a 'magazine-like' feel ,which may attract some students. However, it doesnot have the classic style and visual impact of

Holmes ' Principles of Physical Geology within itsnicely proportioned layout, large black and whitephotographs and format.

4. Content. The Dynamic Earth covers all the basicinformation but at a somewhat superficial level andcontains little progression for the more advancedstudent. It is, however, consistent in level through­out the volume. It does not demonstrate theintegrated nature of the subject. In contrast ,Holmes ' Principles of Physical Geology covers thesame information in more detail at a much moresophisticated level. It introduces advanced conceptswell and integrates them with the more basic infor­mation . As a whole the volume succeeds better indemonstrating the interaction between surface andinternal processes of the Earth. Its content is, how­ever, more variable in sophistication as somechapters are more challenging than others.

5. Structure and style. The Dynamic Earth is a poorlystructured and formatted book, although it iswritten in a very accessible style . Holmes 'Principles of Physical Geology is well structuredat a chapter level , although the order of the chaptersis not necessarily good. More importantly, it isextremely well written.

6. Further study. Of the two books only Holmes'includes references for further study at the end ofeach chapter, although the range of referencesincluded at the back of The Dynamic Earth is morecomprehensive.

On balance, neither of the two books meet the criteriacompletely, although Holmes' Principles of PhysicalGeology probably comes out better except for its size,weight and price . For what it is worth the University ofGreenwich has decided to adopt Holmes ' Principles ofPhysical Geology as its core first-year text.

MATTHEW BENNETT & PETER DOYLEUniversity of Greenwich

Geohazards: natural and man-made, edited by G . J. H.McCall. D. J . C. Laming and S. C. Scott, 1992,Chapman & Hall, London, 227 pp . ISBN 0-412-43920-4(HB) . £40; ISBN 0-412-43930-1 (PB), £19.95.

This book is the proceedings of a conference held at theGeological Society in London in 1989, marking the startin 1990 of the UN's grimly- but optimistically-titledInternational Decade of Natural Disaster Reduction(IDNDR) . It is one of a series of publications whichstarted in 1975from the Association of Geoscientists forInternational Development (AGIO). Geohazards aredefined rather broadly here as 'the interaction of man(sic) and any natural process of the Planet'. According tothe preface, the AGIO aims: first , to improve scientific

BOOK REVIEWS 159

knowledge about geohazards; second, to communicatethat knowledge effectively to those decision-makerswho can make a difference; and third , to involve localpeople in any measures which are taken.

After an introduction by one of the editors , there are19 papers, divided between five sections : volcanichazards (seven papers), earthquake hazards (threepapers), landslide hazards (two papers) , 'quiet' hazards(four papers covering sea-level change, rising ground­water, soil erosion and biodiversity) , and a final sectionof three papers, titled 'what can be done?' The con­tributors, mostly but not exclusively from the UK, pro­vide a healthy mix of geologists, engineers, geographersand soil scientists.

What is refreshing about this collection is the appreci­ation that 'natural' hazards are at least as much aboutpeople as they are about the operation of the naturalenvironment. In McCall's introduction he lists sevenfactors which are increasing the incidence and scale ofhazards and disasters, all of which are a consequence ofhuman activity rather than natural environmentalchange . In addition , people are not viewed solely ascauses of hazards, as another factor in the mechanism,but also as those on the receiving end .

The papers also take their brief seriously to addressdevelopment through the local population, so thatalthough there are some hi-tech solutions, there is alsomuch which uses local resources . As an example, there isa nice juxtaposition of papers on volcano predictionusing local volunteer observers (Delos Reyes) and usingsatellite remote sensing (Rothery) , and even the latteradvocates moderately-priced local monitoring stations .The degree of concentration on the technicalities of howthe hazard occurs and can be predicted varies, but allpapers consider the human response .

Given this breadth of conceptualization of geohazard,the scope of the topics covered is disappointinglyrestricted. Although geohazard is defined to cover thefull range of processes at work on the planet, the book

confirms its origins in geology with so many papers onvolcanoes and earthquakes. Geomorphologists arerepresented here, but many geomorphological geo­hazards are overlooked. There is one paper on soilerosion, but nothing else on land degradation.Meteorologists and climatologists are not represented atall. Hurricanes and floods are mentioned in the preface,but there are no papers about them. A book of this sortcould never hope to be comprehensive; editors and con­ference convenors are bound by what is submitted tothem ; and the recent interest in geohazards has spawnedseveral textbooks providing fuller coverage . None theless, the col1ection might have gained from 'overview'papers laying out the scope of geohazards in each of thesub-disciplines of earth science.

Generally the book is produced to a high standard,although there is a typographic error on the contentspage, and 'national' has been used for 'natural' in thepreface. The unfortunate appearance of the term 'man­made' in the title and elsewhere may alienate half thepotential readership.

Despite the quibble about the scope of coverage, thisbook provides something for all earth scientists with aninterest in hazard management and ishighly readable. Inparticular, the linking of the earth sciences with humanactivities and responses should be welcomed . Theinterest in the interaction between people and theirnatural environment may be newly formulated as'geohazards', but it has been the concern of others inother disciplines for some time. Thus this book shouldbe read not only by earth scientists but also by thoseinvolved in development (although this journal is prob­ably the wrong place to say so!) . The book is highlyrecommended as an informative and accessible (ifpartial) view of current research on natural hazards andthe human response to them.

IAN LIVINGSTONECoventry University