This comprehensively revised – essentially rewritten – new edition of the 1990 edition (described as "extremely useful" by MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS and as "understandable and comprehensive" by Scitech) guides readers through the dense array of mathematical information in the International Tables Volume A. Thus, most scientists seeking to understand a crystal structure publication can do this from this book without necessarily having to consult the International Tables themselves. This remains the only book aimed at non-crystallographers devoted to teaching them about crystallographic space groups. - Reflecting the bewildering array of recent changes to the International Tables, this new edition brings the standard of science well up-to-date, reorganizes the logical order of chapters, improves diagrams and presents clearer explanations to aid understanding - Clarifies, condenses and simplifies the meaning of the deeply written, complete Tables of Crystallography into manageable chunks - Provides a detailed, multi-factor, interdisciplinary explanation of how to use the International Tables for a number of possible, hitherto unexplored uses - Presents essential knowledge to those needing the necessary but missing pedagogical support and detailed advice – useful for instance in symmetry of domain walls in solids

In the Preface to Early Papers on Diffraction of X-rays by Crystals Volume I (containing Chapters I-V and published in 1969), the history and planning of the complete book were outlined. The publication in two separate and consecutive volumes was merely a matter of management; the compilation of both volumes was done at the same time. There is a distinct difference in subject-matter between both volumes: Volume I contains the fundamentals of the theory, while Volume II treats the practical development of the 'trial' -method and the genesis and first applications of the Fourier method. In the period covered by Early Papers (1912-1935), the trial method leads to the successful conquest of structures with up to a hundred parameters. We conclude the book with Patterson's discovery (1934) of the p2-series as described in his second, more detailed and extended paper of 1935. With this method the apparatus was completed which led to the present undreamt-of successes of the Fourier method in the field of organic chemistry. We have considered the inclusion of Robertson's famous synthesis of the structure of phtalocyanine (1936). However, we decided that its proper place would be at the beginning of a book which, no doubt, will appear one day, describing this later period. Considerations of space caused us to give up the chapter on Texture planned at first.