Book excerpt: This volume of Macromolecular Symposia contains chapters dedicated to different aspects of modern polymer science. Highly skilled researchers produced texts with detailed information on several subjects, such as, hybrid materials, detection of electric charges trapped in polymer systems, supramolecular structures in rubber blends, compatibilization of elastomer-based blends, rubber/organoclay nano-composites, new stereospecific catalysts and conductive polymer blends. Most of these subjects are extremely new and likely to appear in polymer textbooks only in the latter part of the 21st century.