This second edition of a highly successful book is completely revised and updated. It continues to have the same theme. Processing, structure, properties, and the performance of ceramic matrix composites. The term ceramic here includes inorganic silica-based glasses, crystalline ceramics, glass-ceramics, intermetallics, and carbon. All of these have the underlying unifying thread that they are all brittle and fairly high-temperature materials. After an introductory chapter, the processing, microstructure, and properties of various ceramic materials, reinforcements and their composites are described. A separate chapter is devoted to the processing of ceramic reinforcements, with a special emphasis on fibres. Processing a ceramic matrix composite is the next chapter, which includes novel techniques such as sol-gel processing and ceramics from polymeric precursors. The next four chapters cover the subjects of interface region in ceramic composites mechanical and physical properties and the role of thermal stresses and the important subject of toughness enhancement. Laminated composites made of ceramics are described in a separate chapter.