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Since the first book on nearrings by \textit{Günter Pilz} was published in 1977 (Zbl 0349.16015), with a revised second edition in 1983 (Zbl 0521.16028), two more books on the subject appeared, by the reviewer in 1985 (Zbl 0658.16029), and by \textit{Jim Clay} in 1992 (Zbl 0790.16034). There was as well the book by \textit{Heinz Wähling} on nearfields which appeared in 1987 (Zbl 0669.12014). So this book fits into a fairly neat progression, and it is of interest to see how the emphasis and presentation has evolved. The first book, in both its incarnations, was a very full survey of the work done on the theory of nearrings. It has often been described as encyclopaedic, not least in the preface to this book, and the approach is that of treating the subject as a generalization of ring theory. The second book attempted an account of the basic theory and went on to develop the strong connections with group theory, the area of algebra in which its author first worked. Jim Clay's book concentrated much more on the geometrical and combinatorial aspects of the subject as well as providing an account of some new topics arising at the time. So these three books complemented each other to a great extent. Wähling's book was quite separate, covering as it did, an important area which had only been touched on at most in the other books. Where does the present book fit in? The authors have made major contributions to the geometric aspects of nearring theory and in fact Clay's book covers many of their substantial contributions. In this book there is, as would be expected, a good account of this side of things. But it is far from being an update of the previous book and it has a different approach to the subject. The preface begins ``Nearrings are not generalized rings'', the opposite of the first sentence in the preface to Pilz's book. They ``see a nearring \(N\) as a compound of an additive group \(N^+\) and a multiplicative semigroup \([N;\cdot]\) linked by a distributivity condition''. Following this approach leads to an emphasis which is quite different to that of the earlier books, though perhaps nearer to Clay's book than the others. This means that this is not simply an updating of previous books, but an account of another aspect of the theory of nearrings. Easily the biggest of the books mentioned above, it covers quite a wide field. It is divided into eight chapters and a total of about 600 pages. The first and largest chapter (over 100 pages) covers all the basic facts that are needed for subsequent developments. It includes a short account of some of the more recent material. The second chapter, also fairly long, considers methods of constructing nearrings. This is dealt with in some detail, most prominently by consideration of Clay semigroups, a theme that recurs throughout the book. These were first used by Clay in constructing all possible nearrings on additive groups of small order, and consist of the semigroup of endomorphisms of the additive group induced by left multiplication in left nearrings. But several other methods of construction are also considered. Following this the third chapter is a substantial account of regularity and its generalizations in nearrings. Chapter four considers various types of identities involving multiplication. This includes a section on derivations. Chapter five deals with ideas of primeness. Not surprisingly there are a number of different definitions of primeness in nearrings and here we have a fairly thorough account of this work. The chapter also deals with minimal ideals. A shorter chapter follows which is concerned with ``simpler'' nearrings, where simple is not meant just in the technical sense, though this forms a major part of this section. The penultimate chapter deals with the nearrings generated by maps of all kinds, including various generalizations of homomorphisms, various types of endomorphisms, and maps with other conditions on them. The final chapter is entitled Centralizers. Centralizer nearrings have long been known to occupy a central role in the theory and they are duly studied here in some detail, particularly as regards their connection with geometry. As well as an index to help the reader find his or her way to items of interest, the table of contents is very detailed and has about 190 entries over 8 pages. The very great majority of the results are proved, and there are a number of exercises stated, many of which are quite open in nature and meant to inspire the reader to investigate problems for him or herself. The coverage of material is wide, as can be seen from the description above. Anyone seeking information on any aspect of nearrings will very probably find material of interest, and there are many points in the text which can inspire and challenge the reader to dig deeper into the subject. There is an unusual aspect in the way the material is presented. Footnotes at the bottom of pages are used quite freely, mainly to add comments, expand steps in a proof, give full versions of quoted results and similar matters. The authors always use left nearrings, which on occasion leads to some complicated notation. Each chapter starts with a summary of the contents, a useful idea which could do with being more widespread. There are also some quotations in Italian on which I am not qualified to comment, but which, I am sure, are very appropriate. Some aspects are a bit disappointing however. The authors' first language is not English, a statement true of many textbooks. In this instance, the lack of facility in the language has led to rather more infelicities than usual, most notably the use of the word ``construe'' to mean ``construct''. There is also a problem with references to authors whose names are often misspelt, to the extent that the same person appears in the bibliography as if they were two different people. This, combined with a fairly generous sprinkling of misprints and some quirky layouts, gives the impression that the final preparation of this manuscript was rather rushed. At this high price, surely a bit more care and polish could have been applied. In conclusion, this book contains much of interest to those working in the theory of nearrings. There is a great deal of information, some of it very recent, and many suggestions for future work. It is somewhat spoiled by the lack of careful finish to the material and its price puts it out of range for most individual mathematicians. But it should be made available for consultation in all libraries, as workers in the field will want to be able to refer to it.