Book excerpt: The book you are now holding represents the final step in a long process for the editors and organizers of the Advanced Study Institute on hard magnetic materials. The editors interest in hard magnetic materials began in 1985 with an attempt to better understand the moments associated with the different iron sites in Nd Fe B. These 14 moments can be obtained from neutron diffraction studies, but we qUickly realized that iron-57 Mossbauer spectroscopy should lead to a better determination of these moments. However, it was also realized that the complex Mossbauer spectra obtained for these hard magnetic materials could not be easily understood without a broad knowledge of their various structural, electronic, and magnetic properties. Hence it seemed useful to the editors to bring together scientists and engineers to discuss, in a tutorial setting, the various properties of these and future hard magnetic materials. We believe the inclusion of engineers as well as scientists in these discussions was essential because the design of new magnetic materials depends very much upon the mode in which they are used in practical devices.