Book excerpt: Durable commodities are the raw products from which food can be made and are the staples on which most humans rely; with but a few exceptions they are the seeds of plants. Volume 1 of this ground-breaking book series (details below) explains how crops should be dried, handled, protected from pests and stored by smaller holders or large-scale enterprises. This second volume presents a series of case studies on how durable crops are actually stored and marketed. The compilation of this three-volume work has been supported and is endorsed by the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich, U.K. The editors of this comprehensive and thorough book are well known and respected in the world of post-harvest science and technology. They have drawn together 36 expert contributors from Europe, North America, Asia, Australasia, South America and Africa to provide a huge wealth of information on major world crops including rice, maize, wheat, barley, sorghum, beans, cowpea, oilseeds, peanuts, copra, coffee, cocoa, dried fruit and nuts, and dried fish. Crop Post Harvest, Volume 2 is an essential purchase for cereal technologists, food scientists and technologists, agricultural scientists, entomologists, post-harvest crop protection specialists and consultants, commercial growers, shippers and warehousing operatives, and personnel of packaging companies. Researchers and upper-level students in food science, food technology, post-harvest science and technology, crop protection, applied biology, and plant and agricultural sciences will find a huge amount of great use within this landmark publication and the three-volume series as a whole. All libraries in research establishments and universities where these subjects are studied and taught should have several copies of each on their shelves.