<b>Diffraction des rayons X sur échantillons polycristallins.</b>By René Guinebretiere. Lavoisier: Hermes Science Publications, 2002. Pp. 286. Price EUR 70. ISBN 2-7462-0557-2.

X-ray scattering by polycrystalline aggregates is a very broad domain which encompasses research ®elds as diverse as structure determination, quantitative phase analysis, crystalline ratio analysis, quantitative texture analysis, residual stress, stacking faults, crystallite size determination, and microstrain analysis.Each of these ®elds has become progressively specialized, focussing on one or other aspect, but the scattered Xray patterns contain signatures of all these effects.Thus it is a dif®cult task to provide a compilation of these research domains in a single book without becoming too diffuse or going into too much confusing detail.However, the author succeeds in this textbook, which is dedicated to BS students, beginners in crystallography, and to more advanced students (MS, PhD) and researchers.The materials scientist whose task is to monitor and analyse X-ray diffraction and interference in polycrystalline materials will ®nd here a useful menu of starters, complete ®rst and second dishes, and further guidance, if necessary, using the bibliography.The author concentrates on the basics of each discipline without repeating or elaborating sophisticated methodologies already developed in specialized literature.As appetizers, chapter 1 starts with historical aspects of the discovery of Xrays by W. C. Ro È ntgen, along with observations of their ®rst uses in radiography, continuing to the W. Friedrich, P. Knipping and M. von Laue observations of X-ray diffraction by single crystals.The chapter summarizes the important work by J. J. Thomson, G. Sagnac, J. S. Townsend and other pioneers and ends with the experiments on polycrystals by W. H