Electromagnetic Wave Propagation, Radiation, and Scattering: From Fundamentals to Applications [Book Review]

In the second edition of this book, the author has increased the text from 637 to 938 pages and features eight new chapters. The decision to remove the material on computational electromagnetics is, in my opinion, justified, as the subject has since evolved into a separate field. Instead, the emphasis is on analytical (explicit) solutions of the Maxwell equations in various configurations and formulation and discussion of a wide range of problems. Although the treatment of advanced topics is mostly introductory, the book covers so much material that one could use its index to find some information on nearly any subject in electromagnetics and its adjacent disciplines. The first part of the book, “Fundamentals,” consists of 15 chapters with homework problems and covers all upper-undergraduate curriculum on electromagnetics. It is the second half of the book on "Applications", however that makes it stand out from other textbooks. Chapters 16–26 reflect the vast expertise of the author and contain a list of well chosen references for further study of each subject. The covered topics include inverse scattering, radiometry, interferometry, stochastic wave theory, geophysical remote sensing and imaging, biomedical electromagnetics, metamaterials, turbulent, particulate and diffuse media, coherence, solitons, and acoustic and seismic waves. Without a doubt, one can find books that present any particular chapter of P rof. Ishimaru’s text in much more detail. The book is a welcome contribution to the literature and may serve as a reference for an upper-undergraduate or a graduate course on electromagnetics for electrical engineering or applied physics students and constitutes prerequisite material for a course on computers and electromagnetics.