Postel, Kerboul, Evrard, Courpied, and their coauthors take a completely objective attitude in describing the progress achieved in total hip replace ment with reference to their own experience over the last 20 years. They avoid any triumphant fanfares, but not because of Pascal's dictum: "Do you want people to speak well of you? Don't do it yourself. " Rather, they know that other surgeons, like themselves, are more concerned with effi ciency than with laurels, and want that is, new ideas based on sufficiently wide experience and analyzed in a strict and uncompromising manner. In addition, surgeons are particularly anxious for in-depth study of the pr,ob lems, complications, and failures encountered as well as for indications as to how these can be avoided and corrected. This book is sure to satisfy sur geons on both these counts. It is the exciting and almost incredible prod uct of the work and the immense progress that have taken place in the 15 years since I retired. The spirit behind this work has inspired it from the start. It is characterized by a determination to take constant study of the results as the only guide in matters of indications and technique, and the authors insisted on a system of documentation whose purpose (and perhaps merit) was to facilitate comparison both of the preoperative functional state and of the final re sult; they have also kept an open mind for interesting new insights from whatever quarter they might arise.
