Most of the advances in volcanology during the past 20 years have concerned the recognition, interpretation, and mode of emplacement of pyroclastic rocks. The literature on pyroclastic rocks is widely scattered, in part because the field draws from sedimentology, igneous petrology, physics, and fluid mechanics, and there have been few review papers on the topic. Fisher and Schmincke have done the discipline of volcanology and all field‐oriented geologists a great service in assembling material from a wide range of sources in this comprehensive treatment of pyroclastic rocks. With its introduction to the petrology of magmas involved in explosive eruptions in chapter 2 and a complete treatment of magma rheology and the behavior of dissolved and exsolving magmatic volatiles in chapter 3, they lay sufficient groundwork that anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of geology can understand the book.