'Letessier and Rafelski's book occupies a sparsely-populated niche. it contains a valuable toolkit for understanding the physics of heavy-ion collisions, and the properties of matter at the crucial temperature of around 100 MeV, where quarks are thought to escape their cages … an excellent book.' Mark Hindmarsh, The Observatory 'The book offers a broad overview of the facilities around the world at which the relevant experiments have been carried out or are planned, and of the theoretical concepts and methods through which the results of these experiments can be interpreted. I am fairly sure that this volume will provide experts with a useful and timely summary of the state of their field, while sufficiently assiduous newcomers will find it a tolerably good starting point for further exploration.' Contemporary Physics