The book covers many areas of electronics design, from basic DC voltage, current, and resistance, to active filters and oscillators, to digital electronics, including microprocessors and digital bus interfacing. It also includes discussions of such often-neglected areas as high-frequency, high-speed design techniques and low-power applications.

The book includes many example circuits. In addition to having examples of good circuits, it also has examples of bad ideas, with discussions of what makes the good designs good and the bad ones bad. It can be described as a cross between a textbook and reference manual, though without the chapter-end questions and exercises which are often found in textbooks.

There is also a complementary text, Student Manual for The Art of Electronics by Thomas C. Hayes and Paul Horowitz. The Student Manual, while referencing the main text extensively, is designed specifically to teach electronics. It contains laboratory exercises and explanatory text supplements aimed at the student. In contrast, The Art of Electronics contains tables, equations, diagrams, and other material practitioners use for reference.

霍罗威茨，哈佛大学物理学教授，在哈佛讲授物理学与电子学，首创了哈佛大学的实验电子学课程。他的研究兴趣广泛，涉猎观测天体物理学、X射线与粒子显微技术、光干涉测量技术以及外星人探索等研究领域。作为已有60篇科技论文与报告的作者，他不仅广泛地为工业和政府部门做咨询顾问工作，而且还设计了大量的电子与摄影仪器设备。

Winfield Hill，研究（型）科学家，最Rowland科学研究所（由Edwin land创立）电子工程研究室主任，研究人眼彩色视觉生理学与现象学。他原在哈佛大学工作，曾在那里设计了100多种电子科学仪器。之后，他创立了海洋数据（Sea Data）公司，作为首席工程师设计了约50种用于海洋学研究的仪器，并进行了大量深海实验。