Book excerpt: This first focused treatment on a hot topic highlights fundamental aspects as well as technological applications arising from a fascinating area of condensed matter physics. The editors have excellent track records and, in light of the broadness of the topic, retain the focus on antiferromagnetic oxides. They thus cover such topics as dichroism in x-ray absorption, non-magnetic substrates, exchange bias, ferromagnetic-antiferromagnetic interface coupling and oxide multilayers, as well as imaging using soft x-ray microscopy. The result is a very timely monograph for solid state physicists and chemists, materials scientists, electrical engineers, physicists in industry, physical laboratory technicians, and suppliers of sensors.