that we have now progressed through several different eras of computers. Our attitude to the computer has changed dramatically in each of these eras and will likely continue to do so in future eras. The first era was that of the mainframe when operations were generally performed by experts behind closed doors, leaving us with a feeling that computers were forbidding and not something for ordinary people. The second phase was that of the personal computer when we all began to possess a computer of our own and began to feel that computers were close to us and almost human. A computer became like a car: it would take you anywhere you wanted to go. The third era that we are now entering and whose crossover from phase two is pre- dicted to occur between 2005 and 2020 is that of ubiquitous computing. The Internet alone now has over 35 million web pages, 300000 hosts, and 90 million users. Over the next decade it is predicted that the over- whelming merging of personal, business and governmental information will effec- tively generate a new medium which will involve hundreds of computers sharing each one of us.

The second section of the book concerns itself, among other things, with the vexed issue of artificial intelligence. Since the 1960s we have been assailed by talk of ultra-intelligent machines that would very soon be able to duplicate and surpass the human intellect. The false hopes raised in this area are legion and probably best for- gotten. From the vantage point of the 1960s it would have been unthinkable to imagine that most of the companies working in the artificial intelligence area would have dis- appeared from the scene by the year 2000, though this is what has actually happened. It is small wonder, then, that the comments in this work on the subject are considerably more circumspect. We are informed that such systems are ‘not practical with today’s technology’ and that ‘computer researchers no longer aspire to program intelligence into computers but expect intelligence to emerge from the interactions of communi- cating subprograms’. We are even told that the very image of the computer as a massive supercalculator is now quite out of date.

In the final section of this work some of the changes in store for the business com- munity are addressed. The rapid pace of events means that computer companies, even such renowned ones as IBM, can face extinction almost overnight if their ethos and their products do not match up to cur- rent trends and expectations. Thus, IBM has now lost its dominance in the computer market and a question mark hangs over its long-term future. What went wrong? It would seem that IBM became dazzled by its successes in the 1970s with its 360 series in particular and forgot the needs of its customers. There were failures to take the requisite risks to maintain their market pos- ition, to follow a cohesive strategy, to avoid stultifying bureaucracy, and to retain their

178 Endeavour Vol. 21(4) 1997

key intellectuals. It is thus perhaps not sur- prising that much of the old arrogance in the predictions that are being made by com- puter experts and the promises that are made by computer manufacturers has evap- orated. Thankfully, more realistic tones are now being heard with ever increasing fre- quency. If this book is anything to go by, it would appear that those engaged in the computer enterprise may have finally learnt their lesson. This is what makes this book such a welcome addition to the literature on the subject.

Dennis H. Rouvray

The Evolution of Western Eurasian Neogene Mammal Faunas by R.L. Bernol; K Fahlbusch and H-W Mittmann Columbia University Press, 1997. f74.00 ($106.00) hbk (vii + 487 pages) ISBN 0 23108246 0

The best tests of evolutionary processes through time should be those applied to rela- tively recent fossil faunas, if only because more extant taxa are involved and there should be more and better constrained infor- mation available than further back in time. Indeed, this research potential was initially explored by Charles Lye11 in the 183Os, when he first defined the subdivisions (epochs) of the Tertiary on the basis of the percentages of extant taxa. And in the 186Os, Albert Gaudry’s construction of a branching ‘family tree’ for the fossil record of the horses through the Tertiary was one of the first attempts to apply Darwin’s theory of evolution to the fossil record. However, it was soon discovered that there were immense problems with correlating the Neogene stratigraphic and palaeo- biological record, especially between terres- trial environments.

The following 130 years and more have seen the accumulation of a vast amount of information, especially over the past few decades. Many research disciplines from taxonomy to radiometric dating, paly- nology, biogeography and plate tectonics have been involved in trying to reconstruct the immensely complicated world of Neogene times. This book is the first syn- thesis of the subject in recent decades.

The volume developed out of the 1992 Schloss Reisenburg International Workshop on the geography and chronology of the middle and late Miocene (between 5 and 15 million years ago) of Central and Southeast Europe and Southwest Asia. The objectives ranged from summarizing modem knowl- edge of the faunas and their palaeoenviron- mental contexts, through biostratigraphic and chronostratigraphic correlation of the welter of different deposits of the time, to attempting to identify the abiotic factors which have forced fauna1 changes across the region within the temporal span of the epoch.

The achievements of the past decade or so, described in successive essays in this book, are quite remarkable. As the first ten essays show, everything is underpinned by the degree of temporal resolution, which can be attained, and the ability to recognize well-constrained chronological units of sediments and their characteristic fossils. It is now possible to recognize subdivisions of as little duration as a couple of hundred thousand years. At the beginning of the century there was no accurate timescale for the 4.6 billion year history of the Earth. The subsequent discovery of a virtually continu- ous marine record of rapidly evolving marine micro-organisms (foraminiferans) provided a uniquely detailed biostrati- graphic record but it seemed impossible to relate it to the land-based sequence.

Now, at last, the enormous problem of tying together this detailed marine timescale with that of the land has been resolved. The link has been made by the discovery that the record of switching geomagnetic polarity can be measured in rocks and sediments of both the land and sea. The accuracy of radiometric dating has improved enor- mously, as has the number of dates, so that there is now a well established temporal framework, which will continue to be refined.

The middle section of the book consists of 19 essays covering the systematics and distribution in time and space of a broad spectrum of the mammalian record from insectivores to catarrhines. Many of the contributions represent an invaluable com- pilation of primary data that are normally scattered through many technical journals in several different languages. The final part has three invaluable contributions on floris- tic trends, mammalian biogeography and ecology and finally a synthesis of the evo- lution the mammal faunas and environ- ments through the Neogene.

Although this is mainly a specialist refer- ence work, there are essays of more general interest to any palaeontologist interested in this critical phase of geological history and evolution in Western Eurasia.

Douglas Palmer

Technologies for Detection of DNA Damage and Mutations edited by G.E! Pfeifer Plenum, 1996. (xxv + 441 pages) ISBN 0 306 45237 5

The editor of this scholarly volume has drawn together a wide spread of DNA tech- nologies currently used in three major areas of mutagenesis research. They cover methods for assessment of overall DNA damage and repair, the screening and sequence analysis of mutations as well as the detection of mutagenesis and nucleotide base damage within single copy genes. The 31, each by different authors, describe in

Copyright 0 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All right resewed. 0160-9327/97/$17.00.