Book excerpt: This hugely successful and highly acclaimed text is designed to meet the needs of materials scientists at all levels. In this third edition readers get a fully updated and revised text, too. Fultz and Howe explain concepts of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and x-ray diffractometry (XRD) that are important for the characterization of materials. The edition has been updated to cover important technical developments, including the remarkable recent improvement in resolution of the TEM, and all chapters have been updated and revised for clarity. A new chapter on high resolution STEM methods has been added. Each chapter includes a set of problems to illustrate principles, and the extensive Appendix includes laboratory exercises.