When I was asked by Timber Press to write a new book on resins, including amber—Howes’s 1949 Vegetable Gums and Resins was the most recent such effort—the breadth of interdisciplinary coverage seemed too ambitious for an individual person. There have been so many advances in resin research in the past half century, including the development of new fields of research such as chemical ecology, and the exploration of other interesting facets about resins made possible by new chemical, molecular, and microscopic techniques. With a little thought, however, I realized that my years of resin research had prepared me to accept the challenge enthusiastically, a challenge that has been stimulating.
