I already own the first edition and I decided to go all out and purchase the second edition. The second edition has a better description for numbering the metatarsals and better descriptions of the carpals. I have the Third Edition of Tim White's Human Osteology and his pictures of carpals aren't as nice. In addition, he numbers the metatarsals based on size, which sucks if you just have a single metatarsal to number. I like Burns better in that aspect.