The override example that appeared in the text was a bit confusing, and my errors in the text made it worse. Please look over this improved version for more clarity.
Please view the source of this page to see the HTML and CSS code.
I've added several other paragraphs that contain other overlapping rules.
This segment is a paragraph. paras all inherit the green color, which overrides the default red. It would be red because it's part of the body, but the paragraph styling (green) trumps the more general body style.
This segment is a paragraph with a class definition. In this case, the class definition (making the text blue) overrules the paragraph (green) rule, which in turn overwrites the body (red) rule.
This element is primed for an identity crisis. It's a member of the body (red), a paragraph (green), a member of "myClass" (blue), and has a particular id style, which will make it purple.
The whole point of all this nonsense is that specific rules override more general rules.
In the book (page 239) I said that the id rule will take precedence (which is true) and will make the paragraph display in green. This is incorrect. The id rule will indeed prevail, but it makes the output purple, not green. My apologies for any confusion this caused.
--Andy