The book had a mixed reception from reviewers. Allen Nussbaum in American Scientist praised the editor for constructing a consistent story from the original works, but criticised the papers in part two for being difficult to read. G.S. Pawley in a review for Science Progress gave credit to the editor for adding the international notation next to the authors' "retrograde personal notation". However, he criticised claims that the book is a "valuable reference book" as being "optimistic". Martin Buerger in an extensive review for Science also offered both praise and criticism. He stated that previous work in the field by William Barlow and H.J. Woods is not given sufficient credit by the authors and is largely missing from the, otherwise full, bibliography. He praised Shubnikov's book (part 1) as being "very clearly written, well illustrated, and easy to understand", but criticised Belov's papers in part 2 because they "lack a central unifying theme." R.J. Davis in a brief review in Mineralogical Magazine said "this book is therefore unique in English and forms an essential introduction to modern developments in symmetry theory."