This review on infrared spectroscopy highlights three areas in which infrared spectroscopy has become increasingly important during the last two years. These areas are two-dimensional infrared (2D IR) spectroscopy, combinatorial chemistry, and human health. This trend is quite evident in the abstracts examined in preparation for this article. No review article is complete without also including some discussion of the current developments in instrumentation. The review is focused on articles published during 1998 and 1999, but occasionally will include articles from earlier work if they provided additional information we thought pertinent. There is a wealth of other very interesting work that has been published and we encourage the reader to pursue them. As the reader follows the article, they should find that each area discussed impacts another area, which shows that the science of infrared spectroscopy is very exciting indeed.