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Rating: 
Summary: There Are Superior Books!
Review: This book by G.R. Fowles sufficies for one or two all-nighter studying sessions where a massive review of physical optics is needed.The advantages to the book are that it is concise and attempts to cover a small fraction of the mathematics behind physical optics. Yet, there are some mistakes, such as an incorrect presentation of the forward Fourier Transform in the first chapters. As far as the explanations and motivations for modern theoretical and applied optics, this book does not compare to "Optiks" by Born and Wolfe. In essence, the books by Born or Hecht make this book the 'engineers reference' in the world of academia.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice and Inexpensive!
Review: This book is nice and inexpensive. It's pretty worth purchasing!
Rating: 
Summary: A Good View of the Forest
Review: This book is well worth the price!! It offers a quick introduction to virtually any topic in optics, from ray propagation, to nonlinear optics, to mode locking. After reading the relevant section, one is prepared to read more detailed books. Also, it's great for equation checking (was that 2*Pi in the numerator or denominator??), because virtually all the key formulae are included and they're easy to find because it's so short!
Rating:
Summary: Fowle's classic still covers the basics 25 years later
Review: This is a classic introductory text on optics, that is still my first choice recommendation when people ask me for a reference to bring them up to speed on optics, optical phenomena and optical devices. It is concise, readable, and not over-rigourous; perfect for people new to the field who need to "come up to speed". Although there has been a spectacular growth in optics and photonics in the last 25 years, the fundamentals one needs to work in the field have not changed that much, and Fowle's text covers the optical bases well, from polarization to interference to lasers to non-linear optics; it's all here in a condensed readable format.
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