This book is a collection of academic articles on Distributed Artificial Intelligence. The scope is broad, ranging from overview material via research papers describing specific systems to more philosophical papers. Both the authors and the intended audience are from the academic community and this shows in style and content. If you are currently working in this or a related field, this may well be an important book to buy to get an overview of what is currently happening. It would also provide a useful summary of this research area for late undergraduate or graduate students, though the price indicates that it's not a student text per se.

Another group of people that may find this book thought provoking are those working on distributed and semi-autonomous distributed systems, such as agents. These readers will probably find the more detached approach a welcome relief from the 'latest and greatest' hype that dominates the industry.