This long awaited and welcome publication fills a gap in our comparative librarianship literature. The author, who has been associated with the subject for a number of years, analyses existing writings, draws on the experience of other comparative disciplines and puts forward some personal views with the aim to ‘describe and demonstrate deficiencies, suggest reasons for them, propose amelio‐ration’ (p. ix). In preparing it he read five hundred works and spent a year in thinking and writing. The result is a scholarly study which will be read eagerly by anybody interested in the subject. Containing personal views it is bound to give rise to controversies and it is some of the controversial points that I would like to deal with in this review.