MANY RESEARCHERS WILL know some of the previous work of this author on disease burdens and their economic costs in Khulna (Bangladesh), especially to low-income households (a summary of this work was published in Environment and Urbanization Vol 5, No 2, 1993). This book reports on the findings of a large household study in Dhaka that looked at poverty and vulnerability in many facets of these households’ lives. Different chapters report on the findings on: livelihood strategies, marital instability; child labour; female workforce and labour; prevalence of ill health; work-disabling illness; households’ coping strategies; women’s role in managing households’ material resources; nutritional status and the management of financial shocks and stresses. The book also has chapters discussing poverty and vulnerability and describing the context and the study itself which included quantitative data collected from a panel of around 850 households and qualitative studies within selected slum settlements. The work focused in one of the seven districts (thana) into which Dhaka city is divided and the whole range of ‘slum’ settlements are represented including peri-urban and waterside settlements. Comparisons are also made between the four livelihood groups that emerged in the cluster analysis: self-employed (generally the richest), casual unskilled, female-headed households, and casual skilled. This showed, for instance, the large differences between these not only in incomes and in assets but also in work disabling illnesses (casual unskilled and female headed lost most work to illness). The book ends with a discussion of the policy implications of its findings for reducing and alleviating poverty with the measures suggested having a relevance that goes far beyond the slum dwellers of Dhaka.