The conference Conservation 2100: A Fairfield Osborn Symposium, brought together 32 distinguished conservationists from eight countries and different continents in 1986. It had been organized by Wildlife Conservation International and the New York Zoological Society to take stock of the problems and possibilities of nature conservation beyond the turn of the century. This book is a paperback reprint of the proceedings which first appeared in 1989. The number of years separating us from the turn of the century has been halved since 1986 and the ‘World Conservation Strategy’ has been succeeded by ‘Caring for the Earth’, but the work has lost little of its actuality. The papers are arranged in five groups: (1) Tomorrow’s World, (2) Conservation Biology, (3) Conservation Management, (4) Conservation Realities, and (5) An Agenda for the Future. Of these, the first and fourth are mainly concerned with societal, political and economic factors affecting conservation. Parts 2 and 3 deal with the biological aspects. Part 5 contains a summary chapter on Conservation Biology by Michael E. Soule, one of the founding fathers of the discipline, and an Agenda for Conservation Action by the editors and a number of other contributors to the conference. Some will wonder whether the designation ‘Conservation’ will still be justified under the intensive management regimes and the technological innovations predicted by Soule.