About five years ago, Professor P. G. Burke asked me to edit a sequel to an earlier book-Autoionization: Theoretical, Astrophysical, and Laboratory Experimental Aspects, edited by A. Temkin, Mono Book Corp., Baltimore, 1966. Because so much time had gone by and so much work had been done, the prospect of updating the 1966 volume seemed out of the question. In 1965 the phenomenon of autoionization, although long known, was just starting to emerge from a comparatively intuitive stage of understanding. Three major developments characterized that development: In solar (astro-)physics, Alan...