I will plant in the wilderness the cedar the acacia-tree and the myrtle and the oil-tree; I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane-tree and the larch together; That they may see, and know and consider and understand together, That the hand of the Lord hath done this, ••• Isaiah, 41:19 and 20 (first portion) The need to improve our utilization of the Earth''s natural resources is everyone''s business, from every country. This book presents papers from all parts of the world on the subject of making new or improved polymers from renewable resources, be they plastics, elastomers, fibers, coatings, or adhesives. In important ways, this book constitutes part II of an edited work published by Plenum Press in 1983, "Polymer Applications of Renewable-Resource Materials. " To that extent, about half of the authors are the same. However, their papers present an update of their research three years later. The other half of the authors are entirely new. Bo~h of these books grew out of symposia sponsored by the Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering Division of the American Chemical Society. The papers for the present book are based loosely on a symposium held at the Miami Beach meeting in April, 1985. Unfortunately, interest in polymers from renewable resources fluctuates with the price and availability of petroleum oil. At the time of writing this preface, the price is low, and appears to be headed lower still.
