BOOK REVIEW 91 would have sufficient administrative, financial and planning powers to deliver the goods. Interdisciplinary Research The Hyderabad Metropolitan Project, of which this book is the end product, was an interdisciplinary research effort financed by the Asia Foundation. The foundation itself had to close down when this project was halfway through. That this sudy could still be completed and the report brought in the present form speaks volumes about its merit and the organizational ability of Professor Manzoor Alam. However, interdisciplinary work also has its own limitations and these certainly are discernible from the contents of the book. While reading the book, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the presentation of the material is uneven. While major portions of the book bear the stamp of conceptual clarity,firm grasp pf the material on hand and lucid presentation, certain others cannot be bracketed in the same class. The book as it is also seems to have not done justice in terms of coverage of educational, medical, recreational, and social welfare facilit'es, especially their standards and deficiencies—provided by the Municipal Corporation, State and Central governments and various other voluntary agencies. It is availability or lack of these facilities that largely shapes the life-style in a metropolitan centre. Perhaps, the inclusion of various sub-reports dealing with many of these and other aspects (and brought out separately as bulletins of the project) in the book would have further enhanced the value of the book. Having noted these minor shortcomings the reviewer considers it as one of the very few first rate books published recently in the fi^ld of social sciences in India. C D Deshmukh, in his preface, very rightly describes this work as 'meticulous' and 'pioneering9. Very rewarding reading indeed for social scientists, planners and administrators. H S VERMA