free from any of the overtones that often constrain professional fisheries meetings. The present volume is the result. This volume aims to be useful as an appraisal of the state of the art by a mixed collection of insiders and outsiders. Most interestingly, I think, it aims (especially in the four group reports) to identify some of the major areas of unresolved controversy and some of the major questions yet unanswered. I see the book as essentially a tentative statement - often by several dissonant voices - about directions in which we may be heading; the book is emphatically not a canonical utterance on how to do things. It is intended to stimulate, not to codify. Following the usual Dahlem Workshop format, the discussions were organized under four themes. Although crisp demarcation is not possible, the first two themes broadly deal with biological aspects of the dynamics of single populations and the dynamics of systems with many species. The later two themes take up questions of management under uncertainty and multispecies management. In all this, the word fish is interpreted broadly to include such taxonomically varied beasts as whales, shrimp, crabs, shellfish, and squid, along with fish in a strictly zoological sense.