Customer Reviews

The Immune System

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been using the new and previous editions of the Parham text to teach an introductory immunology course for the last 4 1/2 years. Until I made a few unfortunate text choices for other courses this year, I didn't fully appreciate what a wonderful text this is. The chapters (especially in the new, 3rd edition) are arranged in a logical fashion and broken down into sections for easy digestibility & assignability. The figures are clear with excellent descriptions and correlate nicely with the text. While the chapter on T cell activation/effector functions still suffers from a bit of disarray, it is still highly usable & provides the necessary information. Immunology is a difficult subject, but this text makes it a pleasure to teach & learn, and receives high marks from my students as well. It is perfect for a one-semester course.

I'm an electrical engineer, so I dont have good fundations on biology, however, this book unlike others, explain immunology very well, from the basics to the more advanced topics, the images, the figures, everything is really intend for an ignorant like me, to get precious knowledge. I really recomend it!

I used this text when I was a student in Undergrad, our exams for my course were essay format. The author has broken down all of the chapters into small key points rather than writing 20 key points in one gigantic chapter which would be frustrating to decipher where one point stops and another begins. I found the illustrations extremely helpful in that they summed up the main point of a topic in the caption, so if you were ever pressed on time and needed to know the key points, you could essentially study the illustrations and understand what was written in the paragraph. I have the older edition and I'm sure you can get most of your information from that for an undergraduate course. I also was required to read this book for medical school for our immunity/infection course. However, if you've read through it enough and understood it, you don't need to read it again. I would hands down buy this book and recommend it to any student at any level needing to understand immunology. Just be aware, the order of the chapters in this book will not be the same as most professors teach it. If you can get past that minor detail - you'll LOVE this book!

I am glad this book (3rd edition) was chosen for the Immunology course in my university. The main point I want to highlight is that it is a serious book for dedicated people. I felt with this book I was "in good hands," as it covers everything you may want to know about Immunology. I would say that target audience for this book is someone who doesn't have any knowledge of the subject, but is eager to have a thorough, solid understanding of it. It's not the lightest introductory book on Immunology, but it is a very good one. Like a smart and caring professor, it carefully leads in every concept and wants to teach as much as possible. That is to say, chapters are quite heavy on the material, but author does a great job at breaking down the concepts into separate paragraphs. Also, author occasionally uses summaries within the chapter, which I found to be extremely helpful to lock in the concepts. There is also a summary at the end of each chapter. If you will remember most of the material from this book, you can sure proudly call yourself an Immunologist!

I bought this textbook because it was required for my undergraduate-level immunology class, but it would also be great for anyone who is learning immunology on their own. The way it is written makes it very easy to understand, and there are many colorful drawings that help explain what you are reading. It doesn't drag as much as other textbooks seem to. I actually find myself reading ahead of class because it's just so painless to read. There are a few things I might change about it, but compared to the many other horrible textbooks I've been subjected to, these imperfections are almost unnoticeable (a typo here and there, etc.). Some people in class are complaining that some of the drawings could be less confusing if they were colored differently, but I have not found that to be a problem at all. If you read the captions underneath the drawings like you're meant to, it makes perfect sense. I have the softcover version, and it's perfect for people who like to write tons of notes in the margins as they learn. This is a textbook that I will definitely be keeping for further reference, so I write all over it and use it as my notebook for class. There are areas I wish would go into further detail, but I can understand why an introductory textbook would leave those details out, as a class is only so many weeks long. The book is detailed enough that you should be able to access *and actually understand* most journal articles online regarding whatever aspect of immunology you wish to know more about. I've had good luck with books published by Garland Science in the past (Introduction to Protein Structure is a good one).

You should be able to understand the book without taking microbiology, but a knowledge of micro will make it more interesting. A shaky background in molecular biology/genetics is good enough, but again, it will be more interesting if you brush up on this beforehand. The textbook mentions a great deal of problems in immunology that have yet to be solved, and if you have a background in these other areas, it makes it more intriguing to ponder possible solutions and to think about the impact these solutions would have on the scientific community and on society.

this book was clean and crisp when it arrived. arrived during the time it said it would. nothing was torn and it's the same as was pictured.

This book has some great overview information about the immune system but also does a great job of describing details of it as well! Definitely recommend if you are looking for a high quality book.

For a subject as dense as immunology, it is hard to come by a book as this one. The text and illustrations are definitely in line for first timers and for people revisiting the concepts.
This book made Immunology interesting and engaging. A highly recommended book that I will always use as a reference point.

The reason I purchased this book was because it is required for an immunology class I'm taking. I have read the first 5 chapters so far and it's amazing! The explanations/descriptions of the immune system are very detailed and easy to follow, especially with figures that complement the descriptions.

This was a required textbook for my second year of medical school. It is a pretty good text. It jumps around a little bit, but it isn't too bad.