The title of this book is a misnomer. “ABC of sports and exercise medicine” suggests that the book covers all subjects within the designated sphere. The foreword also states that there is “no clearer, more compact, comprehensive, authoritative manual of sports and exercise medicine.” How could a comprehensive textbook on sports medicine be compact and how could it exclude almost all discussion on injuries to the body below the neck?

This book is a fascinating dichotomy. It has some excellent components and some rather pedestrian ones. Each chapter has been written by a different author, and it is almost as if the editorial direction each author was given varied in terms of content, degree of detail, and requirement for referencing and further …