book reviews vaneed undergraduates. I would also recommend it far students who are about to enter graduate school as a means of testing their understanding of chemistry, particularly that involving the main group elements and substances in the condensed states. Potential users of the book should stand warned that not all classes of compounds are covered and that the application of this book's methods for calculating the energies of chemical bonds is not as trivial as the arithmetic might suggest. As with most ather theories and principles, exceptions keep cropping up. It takes careful reading of the whole text to discern those areas in which the method has been applied more or less successfully and to be able torecognize the special considerations which are taken Into account in order to approximate experimental values by calculation. George 0.Sturgeon University of Nebraska-Lmcoln Lincoh. 68588
Mechanism and Theory In Organic Chemistry
Thomas H . Lowry, Smith College, and Kathleen Sehueller Richardson, Ohio State University. Harper & Row Publishers, New Yark, 1976. xi 748 pp. Figs. and tables. 18 X 26.5 cm. $18.95.
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ganic chemistry course, there are very few books on mechanism and theory which are both up-to-date and aimed a t the senior undergraduate and first-year graduate student. This textbook fills this void admirably. The structure of the book is largely traditonal in form. There are introductory chapters on the covalent bond, fundamentals of physical organic chemistry, and an excellent discussion of acids and bases. These are followed by several chapters an bimalecular and unimolecular reactions, intramolecular rearrangements, addition and elimination reactions, reactions of carbonyl compounds, and free radicals. What makes this book less than traditional are the chapters which follow. A discussion of perturbation theory and symmetry, largely nonmathematical, which comes neat, is a very good preparation for the very extensive discussion of the theory of pericyelic reactions in the next chapter. The coverage is quite complete and includes, in addition to the usual Woadward-Hoffmann approach, the ones due to Dewar and Zimmerman and also to Longuet-Higgins and Abrahamson. The theoretical chapter is a good background for the next chapter, where extenswe examples of perieyclie reactions are given. The book concludes with a discuss~on of photochemistry. The book is thoroughly referenced with coverage through 1974. Several chapters are followed by appendices which give quite extensive and sometimes very mathematical expositions of selected topics covered in the text. For example, there is very good nonmathematical description of CIDNP after the rhnnter on free radicals. These aooendices -~~~~ .. can be omitted, however, with no loss of continuity in going from one chapter to an-
.~~~~ ~
In contrast t o the large number of texts which are available for an introductory or-
A44 1 Journal of Chemical Education
other. Many of the problems a t the end of each chapter are taken directly from the literature. Furthermore, if a student wants t o know the correct answer, the student must go back to the original literature to find it. This novel feature allows the student to become of this type given. The book is well suited to its stated audience. The text is not treatedas amonograph where knowledge of many topics is assumed and everything is presented tersely. Very little is taken for granted here. Virtually every topic is presented thoroughly and clearly so as not t o confuse the student. The material in each chapter is e resented in a logical fashion, and examples are selected with care t o illustrate the point which the authors are trying to make. This can also be said for the data presented in the numerous tables. For a book of this size (748 DD). there are
the careful reader. With any book of this type, every reader will find some topic which the reader feels is slighted. In particular, I would like to have seen more coverage of carbenes and benzyne; ips" nitration, a subject of current interest, was not mentioned a t all. In conclusion, the authors have written a very goad book. It deserves a large audience. Richard M. Pagni University of Tennessee Knoxville. 379 16
(Continued on page A461
