Although I feel honored to write a foreword for this important book, it is a task that I approach with some trepidation. The topics covered in the book summarize the current state of the art in technical demography. However, my knowledge and expertise with respect to technical demography are limited to the most fundamental and intermediate-level methods; hence, critical commentary on the contents of this volume is beyond my scope in this fore word. Since I have some understanding of the logic and substantive aspects of the methods rather than the complicated mathematics used in describing...