The synthetic chemistry of carbohydrates has advanced at a scarcely equalled rate in the last 25 years, due to the great interest of biologically active natural products coritaining sugar moieties. It suffices to note that in the review by J. D. Dutcher appearing in "Advances in Carbohydrate Chemistry" vol. 18, 1963, only the structures of less than ten aminodeoxy sugars were reported. This book deals exclusively with a single class of carbohydrates, namely the aminodeoxy sugars of antibiotics, the most popular of which is probably daunosamine, a compound for which more than 20 different synthetic approaches have been reported in the literature since the publication of its structure in 1964. No compound in the 3-amino-2-deoxY-L-hexose series had been prepared by chemical synthesis when we started our synthetic work in this field in 1972 on the wave of the successful therapeutic applications of adriamycin. The compounds with xylo stereochemistry were unknown even in the more easily accessible D-series. The size of this book documents the rapid development of the field. I wish to add that the improvements of chemical methodology reported in. the volume outspan the specific field and are of importance in the design of synthetic approaches to other carbohydrate structures. These also include compounds involved in chemical interactions of great biological interest, but hitherto un explained at the molecular level, such as those related with cell recognition, adhesiveness and differentiation.
