The Forests Handbook joins an eminent series of
Blackwell’s ‘Handbooks’. However, the connota-
tion of ‘Handbook’, for those brought up in the
English tradition, is that of a practical manual
telling the reader how to do things. This ‘hand-
book’ is not like that at all. What we have done in
these two volumes is to assemble a unique com-
pilation, and I employ that overused adjective
advisedly. It is unique in the sense of bringing
together eminent foresters, biologists, ecologists,
scientists, academics and managers from many
countries to tell a story that embraces much of
the span of what we call ‘forest science’ though
not all of operational forestry