At the heart of the move toward interdisciplinary scholarship, particularly within the field of genetics, this form of study combines tenets of both biology and mathematics. Wakeley (Harvard U.) approaches coalescent theory primarily from the biological end, and assumes most readers are biologists, but gives full due to the mathematical argument without losing non-experts. He describes the concepts behind gene genealogies, include genealogical thinking, mutation and mutation models, measures of DNA polymorphism and, by way of example, variation at the pyruvate dehydrogenase E1 alpha (or PDHA1) subunit. He then gives the fundamentals of probability theory and Poisson processes, moving to the population genetic models and the standard coalescent model, properties of coalescent genealogies, neutral genetic variation, the structured coalescent, separation of time scales, ancestral graphs, simulations and inference. The result is remarkably accessible, given the complexity of both approach and content. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)