Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews America’s Scientific Treasures: A Travel Companion Paul S. Cohen and Brenda H. Cohen. American Chemistry Society (distributed by Oxford University Press, New York), 1998. 446 pp. ISBN 0-8412-3444-2. $24.95.
This is a novel, useful, well-illustrated and generally well-written book that seeks to direct travelers to places of scientific interest: a kind of Michelin guide without the judgmental stars and worth-a-detour admonitions. Each listing is accompanied by a one- to two-page essay outlining the local attractions. While some of these would seem to derive from publicity material, most bear witness to the Cohens’ peripatetic research. One result of this is a certain bicoastal bias: there are 23 entries each for New York State and California, while Wisconsin merits only 3, Michigan 2, and Iowa and Indiana 1 each! After all, there is a computer museum in Minnesota as well as in Boston and a Bakken Institute of Electricity and Life in Minneapolis as well as similar places in Philadelphia. But these Rodney Dangerfield carpings aside, the authors have done an excellent job of highlighting many famous and not a few obscure (the Wagner Free Institute of Science and Bartram’s Garden, both in Philadelphia, and the Indiana Medical History Museum in Indianapolis) places that are well worth a passing visit. “Scientific treasures” is a rather indefinite term and criteria for inclusion in a book such as this are difficult to define. Several zoos are deservedly cited but others are not listed. Incidentally, one is saddened to see the Bronx Zoo reduced to answering to the nice-nellyism of “International Wildlife Conservation Park”. The De Soto Caverns Park in Childersburg, Alabama, makes the list but Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico do not. The site of America’s first glass shop is here but the site of the first sustained nuclear reaction, with its hauntingly ambivalent Henry Moore sculpture, is not. I realize that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, but a certain balance is surely a scientific virtue. Another problem arises with nontraditional venues. Is EPCOT center not a showplace for science and technology? Since children are often accompanying baggage on touring vacations, and since, as I can vouch from personal experience, they often show a mulish intolerance towards traditional museums, should attention not be paid to the many fine children’s museums that have sprung up in the last 15 years? That in Indianapolis, one of the largest and best, has, thanks to the generosity of the Eli Lilly Company, a strong science component. But enough of quibbles. This is a splendid first iteration. Several years ago J. M. and M. J. Cohen issued a revised edition of their The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations. On the cover an enthusiastic reviewer is quoted as saying “Carry on Cohens, we need you.” In the hope and expectation that this book will also prosper I can only echo that statement. Derek A. Davenport Department of Chemistry Purdue University West Lafayette, IN 47907-1393
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 76 No. 7 July 1999 • Journal of Chemical Education
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