The word lightning conjures up many different thoughts, depending on who you are. For instance, an engineer might wonder, "How can I protect this building?" A computer manager might ask, "What protection is available to save my equip­ ment?" A golf course manager wants to warn golfers about life-saving measures to take during a lightning storm. And on and on the needs go. In fact, the variety of backgrounds of people who need to understand lightning, its effects, and pro­ tection techniques ranges from the highly technical to the illiterate, creating a very difficult educational problem for the lightning protection industry. In this book, Marvin Frydenlund presents a refreshingly new melding of the many pieces of the lightningjigsaw puzzle that are scattered throughout numerous libraries, magazine and newspaper articles, codes, standards, statistics, research, and the enormous body of information called "old wives' tales, myths, opinions, and snake oil sales literature." He has created a broad-spectrum review of the en­ tire field oflightning that is easy to read and understand, and it will benefit anyone who wants to study and comprehend the subject.