Introduction to Hydrodynamic Stability

Rating:
Summary: Good topics, but see his other books
Review: Drazin was an excellent writer (see Hydrodynamic Stability and Nonlinear Systems), but this book felt very disorganized to me, possibly because he passed away shortly before it's release.

The concept is very good: how do we get from instability to full-fleged turbulence, and are we even ready to answer the question? He gives a good explanation of the stability of ODEs, and follows this with a discussion of the standard linear hydrodynamic stability problems (Kelvin-Helmholtz, Rayleigh-Bénard, etc.). It ends with a discussion of the transition to turbulence.

But the problem is that he has already treated most of these topics in his other books, and the earlier treatments were nearly identical in many respects, or they were just plain better. Even regarding the new material on transition to turbulence, I feel that it did not serve to unify the earlier topics as it should have.

Some further editing may have greatly improved this book and better underscored the overlying theme, but as it stands I feel that one is better off spending their time on his other books.