Book excerpt: The pharmaceutical industry has changed beyond all recognition in the past 100 years. The modern industry is constantly in the news as new breakthroughs in medical treatment are announced, often provoking ethical and social debates about the implications of new technologies. This volume facilitates the study of the industry by providing information on the present location of pharmaceutical archives. The core of the book consists of a business-by-business guide to the industry's records. Each entry includes a brief history of the company, a summary of its surviving archives and a bibliography of related publications. Similar entries exist for trade associations and schools of pharmacy associated with the industry and there are two appendices listing small collections of records held and relevant public records. The historical compendium is supplemented by three introductory essays, written by leading academics in the field, outlining the history of the industry and describing the nature and uses of the archival records which it has created. These essays are supplemented by a select chronology of pharmaceutical legislation and a select bibliography of histories relating to the pharmaceutical industry in general. A users guide helps readers understand how the business entries were constructed and is supplemented by a glossary of terms used in this book As such, this book will no doubt prove an invaluable resource to researchers undertaking comparative studies of the pharmaceutical industry, the history of medicine and the retailing of medical drugs.