This is a condensed version of the textbook Fields Virology, although "condensed" really overstates the fact. It is over 1000 pages packed with information sufficient to please most readers.
The second edition is a significant change from the first edition of Fundamental Virology, published in 1986. Eighteen former contributors are not in the second edition, but 24 new ones appear. As before, but in a more clear-cut manner, the text has two basic sections: chapters 1 through 15 address general topics such as virus taxonomy, analysis of viral membranes, defective viral genomes, and pathogenesis of a viral infection, whereas the second section treats individual viruses in great detail. Four chapters of the first edition have been removed from the introductory section, although some of that information has been included in the new edition under other chapters. However, some of the information, for example, antiviral chemotherapy and epidemiology of virus infection,