Part 1 is a brief three chapter introduction that gives the philosophy behind the RUP. This is followed by Part 2, which is a brief history, a large commercial success story and the unfolding of a goal (industrial-style development using OO techniques). There is one recurring feature that I like about this book - each part ends with a brief summary titled, "In Inar's Words", which provides deeper insights into the true spirit and philosophy of the RUP to augment the more practical information given in each chapter. Part 3 takes you a bit further into the evolution of the RUP, starting with a chapter titled "The Seeds of a Vision", and proceeds with a chapter that pleads for a cease fire in the methods war, and finally gets down to business with chapters on BPR with object technology, building components and reuse. Part 3 also makes a case for UML as an object modeling standard.

Process and tools are the theme of Part 4, which opens with an article discussing the software engineering process and support environment. This is a lead-in for three articles that cover "Reengineering Your Software Engineering Process", "Designing a Software Engineering Process", "Designing an Integrated Software Engineering Process Support Environment" and "Building Your Own Process by Specializing a Process Framework". These firmly define the RUP as a framework.

Part 5 is titled "Use-Case Engineering" and is comprised of seven articles on use cases. I particularly liked all of the articles in this part. They cover the basics through advanced techniques. Regardless of whether you are committed to the RUP it's probably a given that you have or will employ use cases and this section of the book alone is of value to a much wider audience.

My favorite part of the book, Part 6, covers architecture and large-scale systems. I have a professional interest in this topic and the seven articles are uniformly excellent. Again, even if you are not interested in the RUP, the material here fits within a number of methodologies and frameworks and is essential reading for anyone who is interested in architecture. Of course these articles are biased towards the RUP, and particularly how use cases can be employed in architecture. The strongest article is Chapter 28 titled "The Steps to an Architecture" and is the one from which I I learned a lot.

The final part, 7, is almost anti-climatic. there are two chapters titled "Objectory Is the Unified Process" and "The Unified Process Is Iterative", capped off with the recurring "In Ivar's Words" that ends each part of the book.

If you are exploring the RUP, or are seeking a framework of processes for OO development, this book will be interesting. If you are your organization's RUP champion then this is an essential book because it will strengthen your case for the RUP. The articles are short and they cover such a wide number of topics that there is something for everyone. I personally liked the way philosophy and practical aspects of the Unified Process were interwoven. However, some may feel that the book tried too hard to sell the Unified Process. For the right audience this is a 5-star resource.