book reviews Editor: W. F. KIEFFER College of Wooster
Wooner, Ohio
Boric Concepts of Chemirtry
M . Jerome Bigelow, Idaho State University. Bogden & Quigley, Inc., Publishers, Tarrytown-on-Hudson, New 396 pp. Figs. and York, 1971. xv tables. 24 X 17 cm. $9.95.
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Basic Concepts of Chemistry in the Laboratory
M . Jerome Bigelow, Idaho State University. Bogden & Quigley, Inc., Puhlishers, Tarrytown-on-Hudson, New York, 1971. 154 pp. Figs. and tables. 23.5 X 16.5 cm. $4.50, softbound, This book was written for use in terminal courses in chemistry. In his preface the author states that he has tried "to present the basic concepts of chemistry using as little technical language as possible." In addition he has attempted "to indicate some of t,he contributions chemistry makes to our society as well as some of the prohlems i t creates." In this reviewer's opinion Professor Bigelow has not achieved what he set out to do. The language is not noticeably less technical than that, employed in the usual run of freshman text, and his discussion of the interactions of chemistry and societ,y are disappointingly brief-atmospheric pollution rates two paragraphs; the depletion of fossil fuels, a single page; water pollution does slightly better, with two pages. What has been achieved is brevity, hut all too often a t the expense of explication.
Few of the topics ordinarily encountered in traditional texts have been excised; they have merely been boiled down. Most students would find it rough going in trying to get a feeling for enthalpy, entropy, and free energy from a discussion totaling three pages, colloids from one paragraph, radioactivity from three paragraphs and acid-base theory (Arrhenius, Bronsted, and Lewis) from a three page treatment. Every instructor will have his own opinion, of course, on what should he included in an up-to-date course for nonscience students, hut this reviewer would prefer to have seen many of the topics which were included in this book eliminated-to name hut two, the chemistry of selenium and the oxidation states of the transition metals-and the space thereby gained used to flesh out the hare-hones discussion of more significant items. The hook does have seveld excellent features which make it worthy of consideration by instructors who do not object to a condensed treatment of a very broad range of material. Questions are spread liberally throughout the body of each chapter, and the student is urged to stop in his reading upon encountering each one, try to answer it and then check his answer against that given a t the end of the chapter. This approach prohahly helps to achieve one of the goals of the author"a sort of dialog between student and hook." Additional questions are given a t the close of each chapter, along with an-
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JOHN W. COUTTS Lake Forest College Lake Forest, Ill. 60045
Chemirtry: A Brief Introduction
Otto I47. Nitz, Stout State University, and Curtis A . Dhonau, Vincennes University Junior College. Willard Grant 444 pp. Press, Boston, 1971. xiii Figs. and tables. 23.5 X 19.5 om. $9.50.
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Reviewed in this Issue M . J m m c Rig
