The sub-title of this volume (number 12 in the series The Science and Practice of Ecological Restoration), Dynamics and Restoration of Abandoned Farmland brings to mind the proverbial glass of water; half empty or half full? Is land abandonment a threat, resulting in loss of important semi-natural habitat and biodiversity? Or is it an opportunity for the re-establishment of old (or new) patterns of biodiversity and/or positive options for controlling soil erosion or generating carbon sinks? The answer lies in the eyes of the beholder (restoration ecologist, geographer, conservationist, economist or rural anthropologist), the geographical location of the abandoned land and the origin and nature of the abandonment process itself. As this volume details, land abandonment is a multi-faceted concept. Indeed one of the main strengths of this volume is the diversity of case studies encompassing, of course, the home of old field ecology, the USA; with chapters from New Jersey and Michigan, but including a wide range of case studies and reviews from Puerto Rico, Brazilian Amazonia, the Neotropics, Australia, South Africa, Central Europe, Southern France, Southeastern Spain and Greece. Although the editors' intention was not to provide exhaustive coverage, and I can cope without a contribution from the UK where the abundant literature on old fields (‘set aside’) is readily available (for example Firbank et al. Reference Firbank, Smart, Crabb, Critchley, Fowbert, Fuller, Gladders, Green, Henderson and Hill2003), I did miss contributions from India, Africa (other than South Africa), the Russian Federation and China amongst others, where land abandonment is a critical element of environmental and socioeconomic change (see Jiao et al. Reference Jiao, Tzanopoulos, Xofis, Bai, Ma and Mitchley2007).

In my own recent project on land abandonment in mountain areas of Europe (Mitchley et al. Reference Mitchley, Price and Tzanopoulos2006), we focused on trajectories of change following land abandonment, scenarios of what might happen to abandoned land in ecological terms (opportunities and threats) but also what different stakeholders might seek from abandoned land, for example whether this might be back to traditional forms of conservation management or forward to new forms of wilderness on previously tamed agricultural land? I was keen to learn about the restoration objectives for abandoned land in the different case study regions. The editor's stated rationale is to ‘make the book relevant to both scientists and restoration practitioners’ and ‘each chapter therefore addresses not only the dynamics of community development in old fields but also how this knowledge can better help practitioners in the active restoration of old fields’. However, this laudable aim is patchily met. Some chapters are very good at this and show clearly how the discussion of ecological dynamics within the case study can lead to development of practical restoration objectives. In others, the applied practical element is less obvious and this uneven treatment of practical restoration goals will make the volume less valuable to practitioners.

The case studies provide the focus (and main interest) of the book, but the editors provide three early chapters on the rationale for the book and relevant ecological concepts (succession of course, but also assembly rules and complex systems analysis). Case studies are an obvious way to deal with this complex topic and each chapter relates a story of land abandonment causes and consequences always with a valuable introduction to the associated literature. Common themes emerge; the roles of facilitation and competition, the important role of plant-animal interactions (pollination but also dispersal and herbivory) and the importance of proximity of abandoned land to intact habitat and passive restoration for optimizing biodiversity gain. But eventually some formal synthesis is called for, and here the Editors take charge in the concluding chapter aiming to draw some general conclusions on the environmental, biological and human factors affecting old fields. And herein lies a missed opportunity. Because not all the authors responded to the editors' instructions and thought about restoration outcomes for abandoned land, the synthesis lacks the strong practical message it might otherwise have had. Practical restoration scenarios for abandoned land are diverse, the restoration cup may be half full or half empty, but it is a cup worthy of more integrated analysis than we get here in this otherwise absorbing volume.