The Series in Metallurgy and Materials Science was initiated during the Diamond Jubilee of the Indian Institute of Metals (IIM). This book is the fourth textbook in the series.  
According to the author, the requirements for a text of this kind are: it should be concise and contemporary, less descriptive, based on fundamentals and sufficiently quantitative. This is because courses on extractive metallurgy, mineral processing, fuels, furnaces and refractories have been dispensed with to accommodate newer subjects related to structure, properties and processing of different kinds of emerging and functional materials such as refractories, polymers and composites. A First Course in Iron and Steelmaking is a textbook catering to undergraduate metallurgical engineering students that fulfils all these criteria. The author’s experience in more than a dozen domestic steel and refractory industries has added flavour and value to the concepts presented in the book.