Dr Brewster can be congratulated for an excellent update of his original volume. In many ways the original set the standard for what has become a valuable crop production series. The book still retains its core strength, describing, in the author's words, ‘what makes an onion tick’, but this is a major revision with much new information. In particular the sections on breeding/genetics and biochemistry are expanded significantly, incorporating much new information on molecular biology; the author managing to seamlessly incorporate it into the original and still make it highly readable. It also illustrates, even with cutbacks in publicly funded research, that there is still a very active Allium research community.

Inevitably, and as the author admits, there is something of a bias to original UK-based research. Given its relatively tiny proportion of world Allium production this perhaps is not ideal, but simply reflects the author's background and significant past investment in R&D (unfortunately no longer the case). I think the author can be forgiven.

Any criticisms? Well, very few. In Chapter 6, 48 pages on onion production, six on leek production, but only three short paragraphs for garlic seems a trifle skewed. An extra table in Chapter 1 would have been helpful to explain taxonomy changes using new molecular biology techniques. There is also some rare confusion about whether species or biotypes are interfertile, and using this, rather imprecisely, as a definition of speciation. But really these are minor and in no way detract from the overall excellence.