Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine. (Pp x + 431; unpriced.) PO Box 4176, Barrington, IL 60011-4176, USA. ISSN 0892-6484.

Professional conferences, whether national or international, serve a variety of purposes: social, recreational, fulfilling an obligation to sponsoring organizations, seeking employers or employees, awarding prizes, medals or honors and, in general terms, seeing and being seen. One of the most important purposes is presenting and critiquing the professional work that serves as the reason for the conference. On the first page of the book in review the AAAM expresses this last purpose in the following terms: “ . . . a forum for the presentation and discussion of research and issues on crash injury control”.

To the best of my knowledge, our colleagues in sociology have not yet had the opportunity to evaluate the importance of this last (professional) purpose as against the other social and recreational opportunities mentioned above.

Now there is a golden …