Handbook of Rock Art Research, edited by David S. Whitley. Pp. 863, figs. 239. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, Calif. 2001. $99.95. ISBN 0-74250256-2 (cloth). About rock art, Whitley stresses, last twenty years have witnessed a revolution in analytical techniques and interpretive models, a dramatic influx of new researchers, and a wealth of new data (22) . Not only do these circumstances necessitate, as Whitley argues, a volume like his Handbook of Rock Art Research (hereafter, Handbook) , but they also explain why the two other edited books under review here, Perceiving Rock Art by K. Helskog and B. Olsen (hereafter, Perceiving), and The Archaeology of Rock Art by C. Chippindale and P.S.C. Tacon (hereafter, Archaeology) have seen the light. Other authored and edited books are now being published not only by rock art centers (mainly the Australian Rock Art Research Association and the Italian Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici) , and university presses all over the world, but also, and this was until recently almost unheard of, by commercial publishers such as Routledge and Harry N. Abrams. Rock art is a field of study that is increasingly focusing the attention of professionals. This is even apparent in countries where its study did not undergo important breaks in its academic tradition mostly those of continental Europe and Latin America. Yet, the trend toward professionalism is particularly marked in countries where for decades, universities neglected its study, allowing nonprofessionals to take the lead. Several circumstances have brought about these changes, all of them related to the engagement of rock art in arenas of conflict and negotiation that archaeologists cannot ignore. To begin with, in many parts of the world indigenous communities do not perceive rock art as archaeology but as part of their own cultural heritage and, accordingly, in recent years there has been an increasing number of claims for the control of its management. Although this trend is more marked in the American and Australian