Christian E.W. Steinberg (Editor), 2003, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany, 429 p. (Hardcover, US $109.00) ISBN: 3-540-43922-6. The Ecology of Humic Substances in Freshwaters is a comprehensive book describing how dead organic matter (i.e., humic substances—HS) affects abiotic and biotic processes in freshwaters. The editor and author, Christian E. W. Steinberg, writes in the Introduction that “the link of ecology and dead may look like a strange alliance, since most limnological studies involve living organisms, and their interaction with the surrounding environment”, and, consequently, not the opposite. However, after reading the book, the link between ecology and dead organic matter seems very reasonable and not at all strange. The ecological role of dissolved humic substances in ecosystems is extensive. It involves several processes, such as: determining and changing water chemistry; reducing the bioconcentration and toxicity of xenobiotics and metals; effects on the bioavailability of inorganic nutrients, which have consequences on food-web dynamics and total energy production in lakes; and mineralization of HS by heterotrophic bacteria and by light, which promotes inorganic carbon gas production and, for the latter, production of reactive oxygen species. The aims of the book are to cover these processes, as well as several additional processes, and to illustrate known and further discuss unknown properties of HS in aquatic freshwater ecosystems. The book is 440 pages long and consists of 10 chapters (outlined below), all of which are written by the editor, Christian E. W. Steinberg. The text has a wide range of approaches, and starts from the chemical building and origin of HS and ends up with the ecological significance of HS in aquatic ecosystems. The book is very well written and organized in a clear and consistent manner, with nicely illustrated and easily read figures and tables. Each chapter ends with a graphical summary, illustrating a lake, …