Careful theological scholarship is the means by which each age can review its theological past. Among its justifications is that new conditions provide new eyes with which to view our inheritance and thus to correct a distorted present. It is scarcely disputable that we owe some of the greatest theological writing to the need to controvert and refute those heresies - or, rather, those different forms of the one underlying heresy - which would turn Christianity into its opposite. Future generations may well have cause to thank even the most tiresome modernism and political correctness for their focusing of questions that would otherwise have gone unexplored. How much more can we thank those great minds, beginning this century with the ecumenical trio of Barth, Rahner and Lossky, who have reminded the church of the centrality of her confession of the triune God. Not all the plants in the garden, are, however, worthy of cultivation; the sheer fashionableness of trinitarian categories should remind us that there are trinities and trinities, and that in particular there is a continuing and unreconciled difference between East and West that cannot be healed except by careful and scholarly examination of the overlaps and differences. This study of the work of two modern British theologians reveals not only that British, nay English, theology has something important to offer, but that a comparison of two of its representatives from different generations opens up aspects of the relationship. The character of the theology of William Temple, not now much discussed, is becoming clearer with a measure of the clarity that hindsight provides, and this book adds to our understanding. His movement out of his early grounding in British idealism, cautiously transcended as the years go by, was in part the fruit of a deepening of trinitarian insights. Especially in this context, his essentially western direction provides a useful contrast to aid the chief scholarly contribution of this study, the retrieval of the trinitarian theology of John Richardson Illingworth. Often dismissed with faint praise, and simply classed along with those whose work on Lux Mundi puts them into a fairly recognisable class of rather immanentist high church Anglicans, the originality and depth of his contribution is here made interestingly apparent. It is at this place that we learn of the gains of the recent interest in the theology of Eastern Orthodoxy, for to see Illingworth with the eyes given by our recent re-education in the Cappadocian contribution is to see him anew. Here is indeed a western theologian who does offer possibilities for a measure of genuinely ecumenical conversation.

Colin Gunton King's College, London

This book has been a lifesaver for me many times when I needed authoritative information in a hurry. If you are a teacher of astronomy--at any level from undergrad on up--you will never regret having this on your shelf! Many times, after searching in vain through half-a-dozen textbooks for some item of information, I have turned to Facts-on-File Astronomy and found the answer directly, without further ado. I believe this is a "must" for every serious teacher, student, or researcher in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

A excellent reference book for all those interested in lipoproteins. Very comprehensive.

The Penguin Dictionary of Electronics is one of the better books that I have come across. The book has pretty good explanation of the electronic terminologies and easy to understand statements. I would recommand this book for engineers and technicians and possibly general public that have basic knowledge of electronics.

It is tempting to compare this dictionary with the Dictionary of Physics (Oxford Paperback Reference, ISBN 0-19-280013-1). They are both coming from an established British publishing house, both are paperbacks, both the same size, both updated in the same year (2000), and, curiously, they have both been prepared by Market House Books, Ltd.

Jumping to the conclusion that we are talking about variations of the same book would have been erroneous, though. A quick glance at the inside reveals the differences. Although the difference in the nominal number of terms defined is not that great (4500 for Penguin vs. 3500 - sometimes claimed even 4000 - for Oxford), the subjective feeling is that Penguin knows a lot more terms. Oxford, on the other hand, also contains short biographies of selected scientists, articles on each of the 109 chemical elements, some dozen two-page feature articles on selected topics like Big Bang, Free Electron Theory etc, and about just as many chronologies of selected areas of physics. Also, the definition of terms are on average longer in the Oxford dictionary - the definition of "orbital" is, for instance, two whole pages long, "death of a star" takes up one and a half page, etc. The illustrations in Penguin vastly outnumber those in Oxford, but I found those latter more informative. Both delve into technology as well, especially semiconductor technology, and, for my opinion, spend (or waste) too much space on computer science technology. Do we really need CPU, RAM, CD-ROM, DAT etc. defined in a Physics dictionary?

Which one is more useful? As a non-native speaker, it is likely that I use it differently than a native speaker would, so your mileage may vary. I've been educated in physics in my native language, and I think in it when I think physics. When I have to write in English, I occasionally encounter a term which I am not quite sure whether I know the correct English expression, although it is lurking somewhere in the back of my head. So it's a time to check it in the dictionary. It is likely that I will already find it in Penguin, and not find it in Oxford. In the latter case, I have to look for a broader term to find it. Searching through Oxford is therefore somewhat more time-consuming. However, the process is reversed when I don't already know in advance the term I want to check, but I do know the broader term, then Oxford comes in more handy. So, in a way, I find the two dictionaries complementary.