A Chemical History Tour: Picturing Chemistry from Alchemy to Modern Molecular Science 1st Edition

Great book - my daughter is a sophmore in college and she was utilizing it for a History report. Thank you

Brillant!

I found this book at my college library. I read the first page and I immediately knew I needed to read it. This book is absolutely amazing. The amount of research done to create this is beyond my understanding. It gave me a new appreciation for Chemistry I've never had. It's a shame this book only has one review.. It's also a shame this book isn't taught in an intro chemistry class. If not that, then it should be offered in history courses. Great job Prof. Greenberg.

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)."