The reissue of this book will be received with pleasure by all who work with explosives, since it has long been regarded as a 'classic' in its area. The book describes the research of Bowden, Yoffe and their collaborators on explosive initiation. The work has a close relation to Bowden's other major area of study, namely friction and lubrication processes, which he undertook with David Tabor. The key to understanding friction is the realisation that solids in contact do not touch over what appears to be their full area of control, but only at local high spots (asperities). When the solids slide the intense deformation at these local regions can generate 'hot spots'. If one of the solids is an explosive the hot spot may cause ignition. Whether or not it does so depends on the balance of heat produced by chemical reaction and that lost by dissipative processes. What Bowden and Yoffe showed was that explosives are ignited almost invariably by thermal processes and though other processes have been identified their work still holds.