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As a third-year medical student, I could not construe of a more boring disease than type 2 diabetes melli-tus. After all, if this were merely a side-effect of sloth and gluttony, why expend effort in learning about it (and making it a part of one’s career)? Further expo-sure to the disease and its complications disabused me of these impressions and also brought home the realization that a knowledge of diabetes would serve as a summary of most of internal medicine. With this in mind, it is certainly my pleasure to write the Foreword to the fourth edition of Dr Ian N. Scobie’s Atlas of Diabetes Mellitus, co-authored by Dr David Hopkins. In doing so, I am following in the foot-steps of my teacher, mentor and friend Dr Robert A. Rizza, to whom I owe the realization that diabetes is a complex, heterogenous disease with diverse con-tributions to its pathogenesis. What is diabetes and why is it important? Let us answer the latter question first. Diabetes is well on its way to becoming, directly and indirectly, the most economically important chronic disease of the 21st century. Its contribution to the costs of care and the burdens of limb loss, blindness, renal failure and vascular disease are readily appreci-ated. Although the diagnosis is fairly straightfor-ward, chronic therapy, coupled with the necessity to change behaviour, means that management can be anything but. In the past decade, progress has been made on multiple fronts in the treatment of this disease. However, the implementation of these advances is costly and complex, which means that they are far from becoming universal. Moreover, newer therapies may make subsets of the disease easier to treat but are far from curative—the lessons imparted by the Atlas of Diabetes Mellitus remain very relevant. What is diabetes? It is a unique disease defined by the presence of hyperglycaemia. Although, broadly speaking, there are two categories of diabetes—immune-mediated or type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes—it should be apparent that one is defined by the (imperfect) exclusion of the other. The complications of hyperglycaemia and hypogly-caemia are nevertheless common to both. Beyond overlap between type 1 and type 2 diabetes, there is significant heterogeneity in the causation of type 2 diabetes. While this may be obvious to the spe-cialist, the generalist may not appreciate the subtle clues underlying a diagnosis of haemochromato-sis- or acromegaly-associated diabetes. Similarly, specialists usually require years of experience to see and understand rare conditions, such as lipodys-trophy, that are associated with diabetes. For these cases alone, Atlas of Diabetes Mellitus remains an invaluable contribution to the literature. Although, or perhaps because, a picture is ‘only’ worth a thousand words, this book provides a depth and breadth to an overview of diabetes that will serve its readers well by facilitating the acqui-sition of new and useful information. Therefore, in conclusion, I would like to echo the Foreword of the previous edition where Dr. Rizza stated that ‘… those of you who choose to add this excellent Atlas to your library will find that you will also share my enthusiasm for this delightful book.’