Prefaces are written to be read, although I suspect that more readers flip past them than read them. Personally, I read the preface first, and perhaps several times throughout the course of using the text. In some books the preface is the most absorbing part, which may say a lot for the preface or very little for the book. In technical and text books, the preface is the only place where authors give us any real reason for writing the book, how they think it should be used, and what they hope readers will gain from it. The first edition of Ecology and Field Biology appeared in 1966. The objectives of this fifth edition remain the same as those of the first and subsequent editions, which are to present a balanced introduction to ecology—plant and animal, theoretical and applied, physiological and behavioral, and population and ecosystem. A text in general ecology should provide an overview of the field and present the basic ideas and concepts with which students should be familiar. Previous editions of Ecology and Field Biology have demonstrated this, and the fifth edition continues this necessary vehicle for learning the fundamentals of ecology. Another objective is to provide a readable, flexible text around which instructors can develop their own courses according to their time available. Since many curricula restrict ecology to a one-semester or even a quarter course, it is difficult, if not impossible, to adequately cover general ecology in that amount of time. Although the chapters logically build upon one another, instructors can cover chapters out of sequence and their students will still have a thorough understanding of ecology.