This book can be looked upon in more ways than one. On the one hand, it describes strikingly interesting and lucid hydrodynamic experiments done in the style of the "good old days" when the physicist needed little more than a piece of string and some sealing wax. On the other hand, it demonstrates how a profound physical analogy can help to get a synoptic view on a broad range of nonlinear phenomena involving self-organization of vortical structures in planetary atmo spheres and oceans, in galaxies and in plasmas. In particular, this approach has elucidated the nature and the mechanism of...