Residents often asserted that ‘if it were not for the introduction of alcohol and drugs by the first British settlers, Aboriginal people would never have lost their culture’ (p. 209). The rationale for the program, then, is based on ‘getting back to culture’ through abstinence. There are no data presented on outcomes, nor any discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of different treatment modalities, although there is a description of the psychotherapy program within the centre and mention of cognitive behaviour therapy. Chenhall has read widely of the literature on therapeutic communities, theories of Aboriginal drinking, and studies of identity. The book is aimed at the qualitative social scientist but will also appeal to alcohol treatment providers and students of addiction studies. Maggie Brady Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human T. Boellstorff. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. xiii + 316 pp., notes, figures, bibliog., index. ISBN 978-0691135281. US$32.95 (Hc.) Tom Boellstorff’s account of the online social networking world Second Life is a must for anthropologists and others interested in research on, and in, 3D virtual environments (3Dve). Second Life is an internet-supported digital world in which people interact by strik- ing their computer keyboard to control a digi- tal representation of a person, an ‘avatar’, who interacts with other avatars controlled by other people via other keyboards all over the world. People perform as their avatar and rarely dis- close information about their more corporeal selves. (Boellstorff is, however, open about his role as an anthropologist). For those completely unfamiliar with this form of socialising, Boell- storff offers a clear and comprehensive descrip- tion of how Second Life works, from the choosing of an avatar to the construction of a house, the securing of a job, friends, hobbies and even spouses and children. As the title of his book suggests, Boellstorff presents his two years of fieldwork in Second Life as a standard anthropological ethnography based on partici- pant observation. The result is a compelling and informative account of everyday (second) life which is written in a such a way as to sat- isfy and engage those who participate in 3Dve technologies, challenge anthropologists who are interested in innovative approaches to ethno- graphy that are soundly embedded in the theoretical traditions of the discipline, and to intrigue anyone who wants to explore the diversity of human cultural expression. Two aspects of Boellstorffs book deserve attention; the first I consider its strength and the second its weakness. Overall, Boellstorff’s contri- bution represents an extraordinary achievement especially given the relative youth of the field, and we anticipate that Coming of Age in Second Life will be required reading for those studying 3Dves for some years to come. The key to Boellstorff’s analysis is the notion that people who participate in Second Life are engaged in the common human act of ‘techne’, which ‘refers to art or craft, to human action that engages with the world and thereby results in a different world’ (p. 55) or to ‘the boot- strapping ability of humans to craft themselves’ (p. 57). Rather than describing Second Life as a ‘poor cousin’ of field sites, a sub-optimal or ‘virtual’ expression of humanity, Boellstorff depicts participation—‘techne’—in Second Life as merely one form of being human which is always and everywhere virtual: ‘it is in being virtual that we are human’ (p. 29, emphasis in original). While I do not think that research in 3Dves can encounter the degree of complexity evident in ‘real life’, Boellstorff’s research is no doubt concerned with very real communities of actual people. His point about the validity of the ethnographic research in this context is made convincingly, to the point of being laboured. Certainly, Boellstorff’s ethnography is extraordinary, detailed and nuanced. What Book Reviews 404 ª 2009 Australian Anthropological Society