Alcohol use among adolescents /

In spite of his rather general title, Windle (Univ. of Alabama, Birmingham) focuses explicitly and narrowly on developmental psychopathology as a cause of adolescent alcohol use and abuse. The weaknesses of the book are many: it attempts to explain a normative social behavior on the basis of pathology; it uncritically accepts the unsupported "gateway" theory, according to which the use of one substance causes the use of progressively more dangerous ones; it focuses on early onset of alcohol use and totally excludes late onset; it fails to explain the role of alcohol expectations on behavior after discussing the concept in detail. Windle does provide reviews of selected areas of research literature. The volume is appropriate for large libraries with strong holdings on substance abuse; of interest to specialists and graduate students. D. J. Hanson; SUNY College at Potsdam