Book Description
Praise for From Alchemy to Chemistry in Picture and Story
"The timeline from alchemy to chemistry contains some of the most mystifying ideas and images that humans have ever devised. Arthur Greenberg shows us this wonderful world in a unique and highly readable book."
—Dr. John Emsley, author of The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison
"Art Greenberg takes us, through text and lovingly selected images, on a 'magical mystery tour' of the chemical universe. No matter what page you open, there is a chemical story worth telling."
—Dr. Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Laureate and coauthor of Chemistry Imagined
"Chemistry has perhaps the most intricate, most fascinating, and certainly most romantic history of all the sciences. Arthur Greenberg's essays-delightful, learned, quirky, highly personal, and richly illustrated with contemporary drawings (many of great rarity and beauty)-provide a kaleidoscope of intellectual landscapes, bringing the experiments, the ideas, and the human figures of chemistry's past intensely alive."
—Dr. Oliver Sacks, author of Awakenings
From Alchemy to Chemistry in Picture and Story takes you on an illustrated tour of chemistry's fascinating history, from its early focus on the spiritual relationship between man and nature to some of today's most cutting-edge applications. Drawing from rare publications and artwork that span over five centuries, the book contains nearly 200 essays and over 350 illustrations-including 24 in full color-that tell the engaging story of the development of this fundamental science and its connection with human history.
Join Arthur Greenberg as he combines the "best of the best" from his previous works (as well as several new essays) to paint a colorful picture of chemistry's remarkable origins!
Customer Reviews:
A Couple of Hundred Interesting Essays.......2007-01-20
The author says that in his first teaching job he was assigned to teach a course on 'Chemistry for Non-Science Majors.' This began a fascination with communications that has continued until now. In his case this has taken the form of a collection of images he has collected from ancient chemistry books and the like. These he has combined with a series of essays, he has written over the years.
In this volume there are some 350 illustrations and 200 essays talking about virtually every aspect of the history of chemistry. Many of these are quite funny, and would serve very well to wake up the students in a chemistry class. Others reflect on what really happened in the 'voyage of discovery' that has gotten the state of chemistry knowledge to where it is today. It's a colorful history, well told and makes for delightful reading.
This would make an excellent gift for any chemistry student or teacher.
Average customer rating:
- excellent edition of primary sources
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The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton
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A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery
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Alchemy
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The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy
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Alchemy and Kabbalah
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Alchemy (The Weiser Concise Guide Series)
ASIN: 0521796628 |
Book Description
Ranging from the pre-Christian era to Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton at the end of the seventeenth century, this Reader covers a broad range of alchemical authors and works. Organized chronologically, it includes around thirty selections in authoritative but lightly-modernized versions. The selections will provide the reader with a basic introduction to the field and its interdisciplinary links with science and medicine, philosophy, religion, and literature and the arts.
Customer Reviews:
excellent edition of primary sources.......2005-09-21
nice, easy to use, accessible translations. one of the first places one should go to get one's feet wet in the subject. useful introduction.
Average customer rating:
- Just finished the book.
- Briefing about the book
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A Chemical History Tour: Picturing Chemistry from Alchemy to Modern Molecular Science
Arthur Greenberg
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Similar Items:
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The Art of Chemistry: Myths, Medicines, and Materials
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Transforming Matter: A History of Chemistry from Alchemy to the Buckyball (Johns Hopkins Introductory Studies in the History of Science)
ASIN: 0471354082 |
Book Description
Take a stroll through this one-of-a-kind book that offers readers an illustrated tour of how chemistry developed, from alchemy to the emergence of chemistry as a scientific discipline in the early 17th century, and, finally, modern-day chemistry. Discover this rare collection of more than 180 illustrations spanning 400 years of chemical publications, with each illustration accompanied by an essay discussing its significance in the context of historical scientific beliefs as well as modern chemical science. The author's knowledge and enthusiasm for the books, images, and subject matter are clearly reflected throughout the very readable, informative, and frequently funny essays. High-quality, full-page reproductions from the author's art collection, published from 1599 to the present, are eloquently displayed.
Customer Reviews:
Just finished the book........2001-08-23
It's suppose to be a PICTURE book, but most of the pictures are badly printed in B/W except for couple others in the middle of the book. The author's description of these pictures are very dull also; I couldn't understand what was going on on most of pictures.
I bought the book to prepare for my Chemistry Class next year. Since it was a "PICTURE" book for "Everybody", I thought I would have no trouble reading, but no, I couldn't understand most of the parts, and was totally confused with all the weird vocabulary and hundreds of names. I was disappointed.
The good side: Though I didn't appreciate the book that much, it did have some nice tales that amazed me. And though half knowing, half guessing, I think I did gain a sort of historic understanding of the world from Alchemy to Chemistry, for that I have to say thank You. So overall, it's a badly illustrated book hard for beginners to understand, nevertheless, it's better than nothing.
Briefing about the book.......2001-07-24
This is a light-hearted picture book about chemistry with an emphasis on the science in Western World before the 20th century As the author states in the preface:
"I anticipate justified criticism of this idiosyncratic tour due to the numerous sites not visited. I freely admit that there are countless other paths through chemical history, and I apologize in advance for discoveries omitted or given short shrift. However, I want this book to be useful and to fulfill this mission it approach will not help to achieve this goal. Although I have attempted to apologize for the weak coverage given to early science in Chinese, Indian, African, Moslem, and other cultures. This is really more an artifact of the availability of printed books rather than intent.
"Although our tour is meant to be both light-hearted and light reading it tackles some of the important issues that are often too lightly or confusingly broached in introductory courses and are difficult to teach. We do, however, try out hand at humor and some of the earthiness so evident in the Renaissance works of Chauvcer and Rabeliais. Why not include Van helmont's recipe for punishment of anonymous "slovens" who leave excrement at one's doorstep? By providing such vignettes, I hope to reengage chemists and other scientists in the history of our field, its manner of expressing and illustrating itself and its engagement with the wider culture. I hope to provide teachers in introductory chemistry courses with some guidance through difficult teaching areas and a few anecdotes to lighten the occasional slow lecture. And if a few students are caught snickering over a page of Rabelaisian chemical lore or some bad puns, would that be such a bad thing?"
The author also suggested further readings in his acknowledgments:
"The most authoritative is the inspirational four volume reference work, A History of Chemistry (McMillan, 1961-1964), by john R. Partington."
"The development of Modern Chemistry (Harper & Row, 1964), and the more recent book by William H.brock, the Norton Hisotry of Chemistry (Norton, 1993)."
Book Description
A provocative history of the people behind the greatest discoveries in chemistry.
In this fascinating history, Cathy Cobb and Harold Goldwhite celebrate not only chemistry's theories and breakthroughs but also the provocative times and personalities that shaped this amazing science and brought it to life. Throughout the book, the reader will meet the hedonists and swindlers, monks and heretics, and men and women laboring in garages and over kitchen sinks who expanded our understanding of the elements and discovered such new substances as plastic, rubber, and aspirin. Creations of Fire expands our vision of the meaning of chemistry and reveals the oddballs and academics who have helped shape our world.
Customer Reviews:
The Best History of Chemistry in Print!.......2006-11-13
I have always liked the science of chemistry. It was, in fact, a hobby of mine when I was in my teens, but I eventually chose to go into biology. I still had to minor in chemistry and physics, and while I struggled in physics, chemistry was my cup of tea!
One of the reasons for this was my fascination with the history of the science and I was much influenced by "Crucibles" by Bernard Jaffe. This was (and still is) a very interesting and informative book, but I think now much improved upon by "Creations of Fire: Chemistry's Lively History from Alchemy to the Atomic Age" by Cathy Cobb and Harold Goldwhite. In this current volume the authors include a number of researchers only mentioned in passing or not at all by Jaffe. In addition they have placed chemical advances in the perspective of the time in which they occurred. This is science history as it should be written! I always think that the history of any subject, be it science, literature, art or religion, better informs the student than presenting only the current thinking in the given field. I know that I understand the structure of modern chemistry better when I also understand the steps that led to it.
I highly recommend this excellent history of chemical thought to student and professional alike, as well as anyone who wants to understand how scientists got Avogadro's law, atomic theory, or discovered the elements and the periodic table. Hint: they all took a lot of work and determination and were understood only after a lot of blind alleys and conflict. Nothing was self evident or handed down on a platter!
excellent read.......2006-03-04
Excellent read. Wonderful bits of history and science made fun and accessible wrapped up in one great storytelling package. Highly recommend this book.
A chemistry book that's fun to read!.......2005-12-30
I checked this out from my local library a couple of years ago, as the subject matter was faintly related to a project I was researching at the time. I was much surprised at this gay jaunt through history and the down to earth manner in which it layed out the evolution of science and learning.
I find, 2 years later, that a few too many of these fascinating historical antecdotes have slipped from my memory, so now I must aquire my very own copy of this fine work. Creations of Fire is one reference book that should serve me well the rest of my life.
key tale told well.......2004-02-25
If you have to own one chemistry book, this should be the one. It explains the concepts, frames the drama, and avoids the nomenclature and exasperating detail. Chemistry forms the basis of the material world, and the future of many technologies, ranging from medicine and electronics to materials and environmental science. The approach to chemistry, over the millennia, has defined scientific method and ultimately, philosophy of science. From this book, one can grasp the dramatic outline, with all explanations easily digested, and the dramatic highpoints presented with just the right flourish. These two writers do not come from Oxford but rather a state school in California, and they tell the tale with a simplicity and directness that most anybody can appreciate.
Entertaining, the most to say........2003-06-26
I suspect Cathy Cobb must be a very amusing person. Her historical gleanings about the history of chemistry merit consideration on the basis of what Cathy Cobb has to say about what is an unusually dry subject. As long as rigorous inspection is not your thing, the anecdotes she relates are amusing or are amusing interpretations of not always amusing people and events. I would like to sit in on her classes just to see how students react to her, not her facts. She must be anathema to some of the unenlightened academics that she so outrages by tripping through the hallowed shiboliths and the embalmed reputations of the "leaders in the field' of the history of chemistry.
Book Description
THEY STARTED WITH FOUR: earth, air, fire, and water. From these basics, they sought to understand the essential ingredients of the world. Those who could see further, those who understood that the four were just the beginning, were the last sorcerers -- and the world's first chemists.
What we now call chemistry began in the fiery cauldrons of mystics and sorcerers seeking not to make a better world through science, but rather to make themselves richer through magic formulas and con games. Yet among these early magicians, frauds, and con artists were a few far-seeing "alchemists" who used the trial and error of rigorous experimentation to transform mysticism into science.
Scientific historians generally credit the great 18th century French chemist Antoine Lavoisier with modernizing the field of chemistry. Others would follow his lead, carefully examining, measuring, and recording their findings. One hundred years later, another pioneer emerged. Dimitri Mendeleev, an eccentric genius who cut his flowing hair and beard but once a year, finally brought order to the chemical sciences when he constructed the first Periodic Table in the late 1800s.
But between and after Lavoisier and Mendeleev were a host of other colorful, brilliant scientists who made their mark on the field of chemistry. Depicting the lively careers of these scientists and their contributions while carefully deconstructing the history and the science, author Richard Morris skillfully brings it all to life. Hailed by Kirkus Reviews as a "clear and lively writer with a penchant for down-to-earth examples" Morris's gift for explanation -- and pure entertainment -- is abundantly obvious. Taking a cue from the great chemists themselves, Morris has brewed up a potent combination of the alluringly obscure and the historically momentous, spiked with just the right dose of quirky and ribald detail to deliver a magical brew of history, science, and personalities.
Customer Reviews:
Is this book really about the periodic table?.......2006-05-15
Reasonably interesting book but not if one is specifically interested in the periodic table or its evolution. Only one or two chapters are actually on the periodic table. In addition the final 40 or so pages consist just of a "catalog of elements", essentially a complete list of all the elements, the dates they were discovered etc. This is nothing more than a page filler for a book that is well written but rather too superficial for anybody really interested in chemistry and physics.
Chemists and their adventures...........2005-08-16
I found the stories told on the book so interesting that I read it like a romance, for a few days, every spare time I had, I was reading this book... One will enjoy and learn at the same time.
After reading it, you have a very strong impression that humanity has just started to make science. Not long ago, the knowledge available was so superficial that very few aspects of chemistry were reasonably explained.
The author explains the science involved in very simple terms, it helps if the reader has some previous knowledge of chemistry or physics to fill in the blanks. The last part of the book requires additional reading to understand the evolution of scientific knowledge during the twentieth century.
I recommend reading the Scientists by John Gribbin as a complementary book as nice to read as this one.
From Alchemy to Eternity: The Story of the Elements.......2005-03-31
Richard Morris has done a wonderful job of taking what should be a dry topic and making it very interesting. The Last Sorcerer details the discovery of the elements and the people behind these discoveries. Along the way we meet a number of brilliant eccentrics, would be charlatans and an interesting collection of scientists and non-scientists. The chapters are short and punchy. The book flows well.
From the beginning we learn that while the ancient Egyptians had identified seven distinct elements, thanks to Aristotle, the field of Alchemy was born thus leading to the belief that all things were made up of four elements: air, water, earth and fire. From there it was quick jump to the belief that base metal (e.g., lead) could be transferred into gold. For centuries afterwards, alchemists struggled to reconcile this theory with their observations. But in that struggle chemistry was born.
Perhaps the best chapter is the one about the work of the Russian scientist Mendeleev and his work to discover the periodic law. When my children were studying the periodic table, I read this chapter to them and it helped to better understand and bring to life the dry and seemingly unfathomable periodic table. But there are other great chapters about many scientists from Boyle to Rutherford.
For those non-scientists who seek to expand their knowledge about the history of science and learn a little chemistry along the way, this is a great book. It is a bit old for children under 13 (and there is some language in the book) but you may find yourself reading a chapter or two to your children when they begin complaining about their chemistry class that day.
Chemistry for the Common Man.......2005-01-03
This was a very interesting book that was packed full of interesting facts. Richard Morris tells the story of chemistry's evolution in a unique manner. He takes the lives of each scientist who had a significant contribution to this growing branch of science and tells about them and their discoveries. However, he does not make it impossible to understand but makes it intersting and informative. Morris writes for the common man to understand and enjoy. Each scientist's life is presented in a clear manner with their important achievements and discoveries. They are all connected with eachother in a complex fashion that Morris makes clear for the reader.
An interesting aspect of this book was that Morris made the scientists seem like real people, not the heroes and untouchable geniuses we often make them. Morris makes the study of chemistry through the ages tangable and close to home. The scienists could be your next-door neighbor the way he describes their lives. They have petty arguments and marital problems just like the common man. This makes the study of chemistry something that is more friendly and something to be understood by everyday people, not just the intelligent men who studied it and made discoveries for it.
This book was highly enjoyable and I recommend it to anyone interested in the evolution of chemistry. Or anyone mildly interested in the structure of chemistry. It is a clear and easily understood book that is a fast read and interesting. The concepts are presented clearly and the topic is well-developed. The chapters are short and broken up into small sub-chapters making it faster to read. Morris is very fond of footnotes and uses them quite frequently to help the reader understand different concepts. This is a very reader-friendly book and an intersesting read.
The tortuous path from superstition to mystery.......2004-04-19
In a world of leptons, quarks, muons, superstrings, 10 dimensions of space and an 11-dimensional theory called M theory -- it is hard to remember the electron was discovered just over a century ago.
English physicist J.J. Thompson discovered the electron in 1897; since then, there has been an explosion of discoveries. For thousands of years, chemists thought of the world consisted of earth, air, fire and water. It was a theory offered by Empedocles, who lived about 2,500 years ago and was said to be able to control the winds and restore life to a woman who had been dead for 30 days. Once Aristotle endorsed the idea, chemists were stuck with it for nearly two and one-half millennia.
Logically, if everything consists of four basic elements -- then, by properly mixing it would be possible to make gold and every other useful item. For example, when mercury ore was heated, a pool of liquid metal was formed. Transformations took place when substances were heated, dissolved, melted, filtered, and crystallized. The key was discovering the proper mixture of the four elements, then keep it secret.
Mix tin and copper and the result was bronze, better than both tin and copper and looking a lot like gold. Wise men would have been foolish not to pursue such a promising start. However, it was a dead-end road, even though the ancients had endorsed it.
Secrecy was the second crucial ingredient. Alchemists realized if everyone knew the secret of making gold, the social impact would be catastrophic. As a result, every alchemist literally began work based on zero knowledge of what works and what doesn't. Bad ideas were never rejected, good ideas were never shared.
It took some real rebels, weirdos and geeks to upset more than two thousand years of error. One of the earliest was Paracelsus; the name he gave himself meant "greater than Celsus," a deservedly famous first century AD Roman physician. Paracelsus, according to one of his contemporaries, "lived like a pig and looked like a sheep drover. He found his greatest pleasure among the company of the most dissolute rabble, and spent most of his time drunk." This is the type of man who first questioned the wisdom of the ages.
In an age when religious fundamentalism is becoming ever more terrible, Morris presents a fascinating story of how scientists went from absolute certainty about the world to tenuous uncertainty. It wasn't too long ago that scientists were looking ever deeper into the furthest reaches of the universe; within the past decade, they have discovered that 96 percent of the universe is invisible and for all intents and purposes unknown.
Science is the process of uncertainty. It's a lonely, dangerous path of inquiry to follow. The English condemned the man who discovered oxygen as a dangerous radical; the French guillotined the leading scientist of his era, because he didn't fit in with the certainties of revolutionary France; the Russian who came up with the Periodic Table of the elements survived only because of the Czar's protections; and the Nazis would have executed the greatest physicist of the past century because he was Jewish.
Care to be a scientist?
It takes guts. Morris outlines the risks, dangers and rewards of overthrowing an ancient orthodoxy with skill, humour and insight. Without people who have the courage to challenge the old, accepted and true, our lives would be ruled by sorcery, superstition and suspicion.
In brief, it's a wonderful look at how modern thought came to be modern.
Book Description
Classic popular account of great chemists Trevisan, Paracelsus, Avogadro, Mendeleeff, Curies, Thomson, Lawrence, up to A-bomb research and recent work with subatomic particles. The Chicago Daily Tribune declared, . "The saga is exciting and Mr. Jaffe has told it with distinction." 20 illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
One of the finest books on the history of science.......2006-11-21
This is one of the finest books on the history of science I have ever read. Each scientist appears larger than life - even their warts and flaws are the size of mountains. This is the history of chemistry told on the large screen, technicolor, and surround sound, as heroic as any military or political history. I'll be re-reading this book 20 years from now.
Not received.......2006-03-22
I have not received yet the books in question. I would like to know what happened.
Truly yours,
Guillermo Pineda
still a great introduction to chemistry.......2005-10-09
Not everyone likes to jump into a field with a basic textbook. Crucibles tells the story of modern chemistry and atomic theory in the form of a series of biographical vignettes with an emphasis on chemistry. It starts with the ancients and covers a lot of ground. I found it rather fascinating as a kid, but I still think it's pretty good as an introduction.
Good information - difficult style.......2003-07-14
I have read and reread this book several times and use it in teaching honors and AP Chemistry on the high school level, and have required my students to read it to bolster their knowledge of the history of chemistry. It is an excellent book, but the writing style is somewhat difficult for high school students, even the higher performing ones. Because of this, I have added some more recent books written in a more engaging style for my students to choose from. I would still recommend this book to those interested in the history of chemistry, but I would also recommend others as well, including PROMETHEANS IN THE LAB by McGrayne and UNCLE TUNGSTEN by Sacks.
Customer Reviews:
Chemists and their adventures...........2005-08-16
I found the stories told on the book so interesting that I read it like a romance, for a few days, every spare time I had, I was reading this book... One will enjoy and learn at the same time.
After reading it, you have a very strong impression that humanity has just started to make science. Not long ago, the knowledge available was so superficial that very few aspects of chemistry were reasonably explained.
The author explains the science involved in very simple terms, it helps if the reader has some previous knowledge of chemistry or physics to fill in the blanks. The last part of the book requires additional reading to understand the evolution of scientific knowledge during the twentieth century.
I recommend reading the Scientists by John Gribbin as a complementary book as nice to read as this one.
Product Description
Alchemy is one of the most evocative subjects in the history of science. Alchemy made important contributions to the development of modern science while firing popular imagination so strongly that portrayals of the alchemist at work pervaded the arts. The more celebrated goals of alchemy, like transmutation of base metals into gold, still tease and tantalize. Transmutations offers a thoughtful look at the role of the alchemist in the 17th and 18th centuries, as depicted in a selection of paintings from the Eddleman and Fisher Collections housed at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. This beautiful full-color book reveals much about the beginnings of chemistry as a profession.
Amazon.com
In 1980, writes historian Trevor Levere, University of California physicists turned an "unimaginably small sample of bismuth into gold," turning one element into another through the medium of a particle accelerator. We call such things experimental science; a medieval scholar would have called it alchemy, a lay observer magic--all of which, by Levere's account, describe modern chemistry.
The history of chemistry is being rewritten every day, notes Levere. In the last three decades alone, more than 7.5 million chemical compounds have been discovered, while great advances have been made in our understanding of the chemical composition of the heavens and our own planet. Locating its origins in ancient and medieval alchemy, the quest to divine the nature of the universe, Levere traces the development of chemistry over a series of conceptual forward steps: from Francis Bacon's development of experimental method to Lavoisier's elucidation of the part of oxygen in combustion and respiration, from Mendeleyev's invention of the periodic table of the elements to the manufacture of modern microcircuitry (which, Levere observes, "involves nearly one hundred different chemical processes").
Much as science has progressed, the author notes, the alchemical aspects of chemistry have not disappeared, as that California experiment shows. What lies ahead is anyone's guess, but, Levere concludes, the history of chemical science is one of ever-changing boundaries, and "there is no reason to assume that this fluidity will come to a sudden stop." --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
Chemistry explores the way atoms interact, the constitution of the stars, and the human genome. Knowledge of chemistry makes it possible for us to manufacture dyes and antibiotics, metallic alloys, and other materials that contribute to the necessities and luxuries of human life. In Transforming Matter, noted historian Trevor H. Levere emphasizes that understanding the history of these developments helps us to appreciate the achievements of generations of chemists.
Levere examines the dynamic rise of chemistry from the study of alchemy in the seventeenth century to the development of organic and inorganic chemistry in the age of government-funded research and corporate giants. In the past two centuries, he points out, the number of known elements has quadrupled. And because of synthesis, chemistry has increasingly become a science that creates much of what it studies.
Throughout the book, Levere follows a number of recurring themes: theories about the elements, the need for classification, the status of chemical science, and the relationship between practice and theory. He illustrates these themes by concentrating on some of chemistry's most influential and innovative practitioners. Transforming Matter provides an accessible and clearly written introduction to the history of chemistry, telling the story of how the discipline has developed over the years.
Customer Reviews:
A book from academia that thoroughly explains history of chemistry.........2006-07-14
I'm impressed. This book was written and published in academia. Any of my readers can tell you I have less that a good opinion of the ability of those in academia to write science so that we can understand it, let alone enjoy it. This is one book that managed to do just that, and no, I am not selling it as I need it for my poor students who have horrible textbooks to waddle through. This book not only managed to answer questions that I've had during time when I was a student learning chemistry, a graduate using chemistry in the lab, and now an instructor of chemistry...but it also tied everything together in a nice, fairly short package and get a little physics in there too (as it is hard to totally nonsurgically remove these two topics from being intertwined with each other). This is a book I highly recommend to be used as recommended reading or even required reading for students, since it did not cost much and made so many things much clearer than the more expensive textbooks did. The book introduces the r eader to almost all the major ideas and concepts in chemistry, ties them from the alchemist of the 1700s to the experimenters of the 1800s and so on, and allows the students to make a choice of whether to go on and read much more by giving a decent bibliography.
I am going to see if I can find more in these books and series that are as well-written as this book is. Science needs to be understood by everyone, and we should have the choice of whether to take advantage of its accessibility. We shouldn't have to deal with the idea that seems to be cherished among many of the elite at the Ivy League schools that we don't need to be scientifically-literate as announced by the President of Princeton last year when he said that women could not do science...somebody forgot to tell Marie Curie that, and the thousands of women who have worked in and loved science since then. It isn't his decision. It's ours, and every child in this country has a right to equal access to the same information, especially if we work our butts off trying to achieve that equality!
Karen L. Sadler
Chemistry and Science Education
U of PIttsburgh
Community College of Allegheny County
Why I haven't bought this book.......2005-06-29
The 3 stars given are meaningless because I haven't bought this book. May be it deserves more, may be less. I just wish to explain why, although tempted, I haven't bought it.
Roughly speaking, 90% of our chemical knowledge have been discovered in the 20th century. So I found the title "...from Alchemy to the Buckyball" most appealing. I thought : "this is one of those rare books which discuss also modern chemistry".
When examining the index however, I haven't found the following names : Barton, Butenandt, Corey, Cornforth, Fukui, Haworth, Hoffmann, Lehn, Natta, Prelog, Robinson, Ruzicka, Taub,Wieland, Windaus, Woodward, Ziegler..., all Nobel Prize winners. Not to mention other outstanding chemists like Eschenmoser or Stork.
This may be a very good book for the history of chemistry up to the beginning of the 20th century, it is not a history of the whole science of chemistry. So, with much regret, I did not buy it.
Terrific overview.......2003-06-12
The one-sentence review runs thus: anyone with an appreciation for science and/or history, particularly both, will enjoy this book.
The author, Trevor Levere, is obviously a consummate historian, with thorough knowledge of the workings of science and its development through the ages. Levere has a keen sense of the humanity and little ironies that make up the twists and turns of the shaping of the state of chemical knowledge at various times, and conveys them in a friendly, readable style. I found the discussion of the various approaches to gases and how knowledge of the gas laws came out out of them particularly interesting (and did you know Robert Boyle in his day was considered an "alchemist"?). The author is very good about zeroing in on the most fertile areas of discovery and expounding upon what came out of them.
There are only a couple of minor problems that don't have much impact on the overall flow of the book. One is that Faraday and electrochemistry were introduced rather abruptly, with no information about where charge-sign and current conventions came from. It was something I wanted to learn about, and felt it was rather conspicuously absent. The other is the final chapter, about 20th century chemical discoveries (DNA, buckyballs, yadda yadda), which seemed a bit meandering and aimless as a whole.
But overall, excellent, very accessible. Don't hesitate.
An excellent and highly recommended introduction.......2002-02-08
Transforming Matter: A History Of Chemistry From Alchemy To The Buckyball is a college-level discourse on the history of chemistry and will serve as a fine basic introduction for any studying the history of science as a whole. Chapters begin with early alchemy to survey the rise of theories about the elements, the creation of classification systems, and relationships between scientific method and practices. An excellent and highly recommended introduction.
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