Holdgate's 1979 book A Perspective of Environmental Pollution was an intensely important volume when it was first published, looking as it did to contextualise and extensively review the effects of pollution throughout the 1970s. As founding director of the Department of the Environment's Central Unit on Environmental Pollution, Dr Holdgate was eminently well qualified to provide this analysis. Holdgate takes an ecological view of pollutants, pathways and environmental change, whilst also looking at international pollution and the way in which patterns of pollution are monitored and costed. Whilst his primary analysis is scientific, he also writes confidently and convincingly on the legal, administrative and economic effects of industrial processes on the environment. This book will continue to be of use to anyone with an interest in the impact and assessment of environmental pollution.