By Guido Caldarelli, Oxford University Press. Hardback ISBN 9780199211517, £49.95 ($115).
This book presents the experimental evidence for scale-free networks and provides students and researchers with theoretical results and algorithms to analyse and understand these features. A variety of different social, natural and technological systems – from the Internet to food webs and boards of company directors – can be described by the same mathematical framework. In all these situations a graph of the elements of the system and their interconnections displays a universal feature: there are few elements with many connections, and many elements with few connections. The content and exposition make this a useful textbook for beginners, as well as a reference book for experts in a variety of disciplines.
