Customer Reviews

The Physiology and Biochemistry of Prokaryotes

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

 

 

Although it seems impossible to have just one text on the huge field of microbial physiology, this book makes a very valiant effort to be just that. The details are painstakingly researched, the text is concise and clear (no fluff anywhere!), and for such a small book, the author does a masterful job of presenting a huge amount of useful information.

Of course, every book has its downfalls, the main one of this book being its lack of helpful illustrations. Sometimes you just MUST HAVE some help visually to understand something (e.g. mixed acid fermentation, sporulation) and this book often didn't offer that. (Even if there WAS a figure, it was so hard to decipher that you'd be better off with nothing at all.) Also, some huge areas of microbial physiology were completely left out like bacterial stress response.

Overall, not the best but not the worst. It's certainly not a waste of money, but you might want to have some sort of companion book to supply your diagrams and illustrations.

As the review title suggests, I come from the old school of studying bacterial metabolism. My choice, still all these years after grad school and years of research & work, is H.W. Doelle's Bacterial Metabolism (unfortunately out of print). However, I discovered White's text while visiting the University of Oklahoma 2 years ago (the 2nd edition). The 3rd edition is an improvement with better diagrams and drawings. The collection of symbols and equations at the front of the book is very usefull with having it all in one place. However, Doelle'a approach is in some ways more stimulating with the first 2 chapters dealing with the thermodynamics, enzymology, and growth kinetics immediately. If you are weak in the areas of bacterial structures and dynamics, White gives an excellent approach to all of the cellur structures of prokaryotes. Doelle on the other hand concentrates exclusively on the actual chemistry of bacterial metabolism. Another strength of White is his introduction to solute & protein transportation. Along with this, White's final 2 chapters on adaptation and environmental stress response are very valuable additions. Without White's approach to increasing the reader's understanding the environment and its impact on the microbe, the study of metabolism is only an esoteric exercise. One of my major frustrations with White's work was the lack of extensive references of the various metabolic pathways and types with specific genus and/or species of bacteria. It is left up to the reader to find alternate sources for this application. Doelle, on the other hand, provides copious references. In the end, I believe White's work to be a central addition to the understanding and manipulation of the microbial metabolic processes. With the microbial world being "our enemy - our friend," White's work will go along way in helping us fragile humans to compete and coexist with this diverse group that co-inhabits this singular orb with us.

I used this text as a supplement for my microbial physiology class and found the explantions good, if not complete. The problem I had was that the graphic representations used to show varying processes were either very lacking, or completely absent. Most good science texts use detailed illustrations and colored ink. This text provides neither and would probably serve the more experienced bacterial physiologist as a good reference.

This is an excellent resource for biochemical pathways, relationships, and diagrams of prokaryotic physiology. The written material is particularly lucid, which is greatly appreciated. While the diagrams are simple and in black-and-white print, their reduced complexity lends clarity to the concepts illustrated. I highly recommend this book to anyone in the microbial sciences at the upper-undergraduate level and beyond.

The book was new and I was happy to receive it on time! I recommend it to other people that want to buy it and need it fast.

The book is indeed in good condition, few notes taken. The pages are clean and like brand-new. The seller was fast in response to my questions. And the order arrives pretty fast, in two days. Overall, vary satisfactory with the purchase. BTW, this is a pretty readable book!