Marin (chemical engineering, Ghent U., Belgium) comes from the US and Low Lands thermodynamic and kinetic tradition, and Yablonsky (chemistry, Saint Louis U., US) from the Soviet-Russian catalytic school. They bring their different perspectives to one of the main challenges of contemporary chemistry: decoding the mechanisms of complex chemical reactions, particularly those of heterogeneous catalytic reactions. The topics include chemical reactions and complexity, linear algebra in chemical kinetics as chemical bookkeeping, the fundamentals and machinery of steady-state chemical kinetics, nonlinear mechanisms, and decoding the past. The material is suitable for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners in chemistry and physics. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)