This is an outstanding book that deals with the history of industrial hygiene and risk management. In a step-by-step fashion, the authors walk the reader through the development of large-scale chemical production plants and their need to deal with the waste associated with their production process. The changes from prior to 1930s to the 1950s and into the 1970s shows distinct changes in how industry addressed industrial waste. It is a refreshing approach to see an explanation of how industry slowly developed their procedures based on their dealings with the public and government, without the usual bias against management as evil-doers and tree-killers.

The authors discuss the understanding of industrial wastes and developing rationale with no appologies, but do it in a concise fashion that is readable to the layman as well as professionals. The section discussing how decision makers can be influenced by this information is particularly good-reading. The authors end by discussing several case studies (of course, Love Canal is one of them) and identifying the mistakes made in each case. This is the real lesson of the book - if we can't learn from our mistakes, how will we ever improve?

The basic premise of the book is good, but the author tends to rely too much on recycled material , such as contributions from his magazine, without taking the time to realy expand upon the topics. The author should either expand his cases, or have his contributors use fresh material - recycling is for material goods, not stories.

Having read several books by the author, I was somewhat disappointed on several planes: his use of old material from his magazine and lack of expanded coverage from his many contributors. Case studies need room to breathe, brevity is not necessarily helpful in this case. The authors could also go beyond their stable of previous writers and RPI alumni for assistance.

Is this a discussion about solving environmental problems or is this book an infomertial for Corporate Environmental Strategy and RPI?

While this book has merit for what it presents, it jumps around too much, and leaves this reader with more questions than the book can actually answer.