As its title suggests, this book attempts to provide nontechnical managers with an introduction to modern telecommunications and its effects. In the 19 chapters (written by 17 authors and organized into 6 parts), a diversity of topics are covered: technologies, applications, management aspects, regulatory environment, and social impacts. Two detailed case histories are also provided. Slightly over half of the book is devoted to the presentation of various telecommunications facilities and systems: transmission techniques, telephony, packet switching, local area networks, television, electronic mail, teleconferencing, mobile communication, and videotex. The balance deals with management, regulatory, and social concerns: cost-benefit analysis, management of an installation, regulatory issues in the US and international scenes, human-machine communication styles and issues, and organizational impacts.:P Thus it seems that an attempt has been made to cover as broad a scope as possible, especially in the technical area. Indeed, the editors and authors have been largely successful in doing this. However, since the field is so diverse, omissions and errors are obviously unavoidable. For example, evolution towards an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is currently a hot subject; yet the term ISDN was not even mentioned in the text. Also Chapter 6 on Digital Communications Networks is somewhat misleading. Except for some brief historical remarks on circuit switching, the whole chapter is mainly devoted to a presentation on packet switching. The terms :Idigital network and :Ipacket switching are certainly not synonymous. The comment that "circuit switching has been, for the time being at least, discarded" is also not accurate.:P In general, the materials are quite easy to read and follow. A large number of photographs and visual aids have been included as illustrations. In the introductory chapters, even the scientific term of :Imegahertz is replaced by the less formal layman description of :Imillion hertz. Although in the later chapters, there are (a small number of) occasions when an author introduced a highly specialized term without any explanation of such terms will increase the length of the text. In a classroom environment, the instructor will probably fill the gap. Also the term :Iline-haul in Chapter 4 seems to be an unusual substitute for the term :Ilong-haul.:P The book is also quite interesting to read. Before the discussion of a technology, some brief historical facts and stories relating to its development are typically included. Also, interesting real-life situations, such as the satellite-based news conference after the 1982 Tylenol tragedy, have been used as application examples.:P Each chapter includes a list of references and some also provide a list of additional recommended readings. In the first three chapters (written by the major editor Meadow), some literature annotations have been added. This is very useful in guiding the reader to pursue further.:P Although the book is a collection of chapters written by different authors, the editors have done a good job in maintaining the integrity and flow of the subject matters. The representation throughout is fairly uniform in both depth and breadth. The chapters written by Meadow himself are particularly enjoyable to read.:P Even though the book is a collective work, it is to a large extent quite free of duplications of materials. The only notable ones are: (1) Section 6.8 deals with some aspects of local area networks in a chapter on Digital Communication Networks. But Chapter 7 is titled Local Area Networks and is largely devoted to it. (2) Section 5.4, Regulatory evnironment, is out of place in Part 2, Basic Technology, especially when Chapters 14 and 15 are handling this area.:P On the whole, this reviewer feels that the book has made a useful contribution in introducing the diverse and evolving field of telecommunications to the nonspecialists. The editors suggested that this book is for use by students in business schools and the practicing managers. This is certainly recommended.