Chemical Education Today
A Guide to the Elements Albert Stwertka. Oxford University: New York, 1996. 240 pp + illustrations (51 color, 47 b/w) and index. U.S. $35.00; ISBN 0-19-508083-1. Listed in the OUP Catalog as Young Oxford Guide to The Elements. Stwertka’s compilation is intended to be a middleschool and high-school reference book, and it shows. The coverage is a mile wide and an inch deep, and has a few sizable craters and rough spots. For example, the article on iron makes no mention whatever of its essential role in oxygen transport in vertebrates, and the word “potassium” appears to derive from “potash (potassium-rich ash).” A Guide to the Elements is certainly a niftier package than Greenwood and Earnshaw’s Chemistry of the Elements, but doesn’t compare as an essential reference. The good points include lots of color pictures and
plenty of information that relate the elements to their most common technological uses. I was disappointed, though, to find no consistent discussion of how each element and its most important compounds are produced industrially, a frequently sought piece of information that would not, in my opinion, have made the book unwieldy. There is much good information in this book, especially on transuranium elements and radioisotopes. The presentation is interesting and eye-catching, calculated to hold the interest of a student who knows little about chemistry. However, this book is intended as a library reference and I am not certain that it is worth the price. In my opinion, A Guide to the Elements is a luxury, not a necessity. Daniel Berger Department of Chemistry, Bluffton College, Bluffton, OH 45817-1196
Vol. 74 No. 6 June 1997 • Journal of Chemical Education
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