The study of the origin and evolution of elements attracts the interest of researchers from many scientific disciplines. This collection illustrates this idea well, collecting articles from different international specialists and discussing stellar and primordial nucleosynthesis, cosmic ray spalliation, and other processes that lead to the formation of cosmic elements. The volume follows a symposium held in Paris in 1992 to celebrate the 60th birthday of Hubert Reeves. The many contributions in the field of nuclear astrophysics from this renowned scientist in the last century had a profound impact on understanding the composition of stars and the universe, as addressed in the introductory articles and many others in the collection.

Writings are compiled in seven sections reviewing the evolution of stars and galaxies and the origin of the solar system and the universe in light of recent developments.

In the first part, Stellar and nuclear data, the essays update the tables of solar system abundances previously projected by Anders and Grevesse in 1989, propose new values for contributors like O, C, N, Fe, and Sc, and analyse element fractionisation in the solar atmosphere. In the second part, The light elements: big bang and cosmic rays, the study of the primordial abundances of the lightest stable nuclei challenges primordial nucleosynthesis and cosmological concepts to determine universal parameters (expansion rate, universal baryon density, and non-homogeneities).

Then, Lithium story, the third part, tackles the low abundances of Lithium along with its crucial implications on cosmological theories and on the knowledge of the evolution and structure of the stars. Following this Nucleosynthesis up to the Fe peak is a bulk section dealing with such arguments as the observation of stellar nucleosynthesis for lighter elements, chemical abundances associated with stellar evolution and spectral modelling, and explosive nucleosynthesis in supernovae. Here D.A. Lambert offers a historical perspective of these themes, briefly citing pioneer scientists in the study of stellar nucleosynthesis as Rutherford, Rolfs, Rodney, von Weizsäcker, Bethe, and Critchfield. A quote of A.S. Eddington (1920) reports "... the stars are the crucibles in which lighter atoms... are compounded into more complex elements. In the star matter has its preliminary brewing to prepare the greater variety of the elements which are needed for a world of life" (p.257) evidencing the insight capability at the beginning of the XX century, despite the early life of crucial disciplines as nuclear physics, stellar structure and evolution.

The fifth section, The heavier than Fe elements, introduces the so called s-, r-, and p- processes to explain the abundance of stable (s-nuclear stability) and unstable (r- = neutron rich; p- = neutron deficient) heavy nuclides, and analyse their distribution at a galactic scale, different from that of the solar system. Spectroscopic data and models for nucleosynthesis and nuclear evolution are described. Next, Galactic evolution and cosmochronology, collects a series of papers touching the themes of galactic formation, chronologies, and chemical evolution. The attention is focused on the range of metallicity observable - from no heavy elements to the typical solar abundances of metals - in the galactic samples. The last part, Isotopic anomalies, gathers contributions that center on neutron capture and astrophysical sources, after the origin, to explain anomalous compositions of heavy metals isotopes, observed, for example, in the case of meteorites.

To conclude, the articles in the collection summarise the knowledge in the final decade of the XX century about the origin and evolution of the elements in the universe. They address typical issues, making this text suitable in particular for graduate students and researchers concerned with the field of astrophysics, nuclear physics, and meteoritic rocks.

Enzo Ferrara, ferrara@ien.it,
Materials Department,
Istituto Elettrotecnico Nazionale Galileo Ferraris,
Strada Delle Cacce,
91 - 10135 Torino, Italy