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more than the past half century. The series editor, Jeff Seeman, Senior Scientist and Project Leader at the Philip Morris Research Center, Richmond, VA and an authority on conformational analysis and nicotine and tobacco alkaloid chemistry, has recounted his experiences in developing this biographical tour de force (CHEMTECH 1990,20, 86). In the course of writing a review article on Curtin-HammettiwinsteinHolness kinetics (Chem. Reu. 1983,83,83), a good fourth of which was devoted to an illustrated account of the chemists who carried out the work and the human side of the scientific developments, Seeman conceived the idea of a book on the history of organic chemistry that would fulfill three goals: (1) to illustrate how seminal research programs develop over many decades, (2) to show how organic chemistry in toto has progressed; and (3) to reveal the personalities and feelings of leading scientists. He proposed to document the development of modern organic chemistry by having individual chemists who had made contributions over a multidecade career (The average age of the authors is more than 70) discuss their roles in this development. Invitations to contribute were based on solicited advice and on recommendations of chemists from five continents. By 1986 the ACS Books Department accepted this proposed collection of autobiographies for publication as a single volume with the requirement that each contribution he read by at least one independent reviewer and revised accordingly. As the writing progressed, the prolificacy of the authors (five o f them Nohel laureates), who lived in 13 countries, caused the original volume to evolve into 22 volumes. Financial support from 24 corporations from all over the world and from Herchel Smith ~ e r m i t t e dthe price of each volume to he low enough so that "even a young chemist could purchase the set." In April, 1990 Seeman's eight years of work on the project finally bore fruit with the publication of the first two volumes, Ernest Eliel's From Cologne to Chapel Hill (ani 138 pp) and John D. Roberts' The Right Place at the Right Time (xix + 299 PP), a phrase also used by biologist Fran$ois Jscab in his 1965 Nobel lecture. I t is appropriate that Eliel's volume be among the first to be published, for it was Eliel who encouraged Seeman towrite the Chemical Reuiews article that led toProfiles. The two volumes exemplify the series as a whole and provide insight into the nature of Seeman's project. Although each contributor was provided with a detailed four-page set of guidelines, the volumes are not uniform because each autobiography reflects its author's science, lifestyle, and style of research. Eliel's and Roberts' volumes represent the extremes in length for the series, the former being the shortest (14 chapters) and the latter the longest (32 chapters). Seeman's "Editor's Note" far eaeh is more than a perfunctory preface but is rich in first-hand, personal detail. For example, we learn that "Eliel is called Ernest [not Ernie] by his colleagues and friends" and that "Jack Roberts growls when he answers his telephone."
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Both volumes are scrupulously documented-Eliel's contains 160 references and Roberts' 300 references, and each features an automaohed silhouette of the author and numerous photographs (Elid, .lG: Rohert~,601, most of which are previously unpublished infurmal snapshots. Although each vdume is agold mineof pemtnal, a u w hrographical data, chemistry la not neglecte d Elid's book includes R tahles and :19 reaction schemes, while Roberts' book includes 5 figures, 278 structures, and 171 eauations. Detailed. two-column indexes , pp.) add to the ( ~ l i e l1 , 1 pp.; ~ o h e i t s 18 utility of eaeh volume. In their own individualways bothauthors have admirably fulfilled editor Seeman's mandate-"to present the scientific and humanistic aspects of their careers, to choose their most important results from graduate school to the oresent. and to emohasize the rheme'where have we come from. where are we today, where are we go~ng'."Roth rplnte [he details of then rh~ldhood;fnmrly life: career decisions and moves; writing, editing, and professional (especially ACS) activities; modus operandi; grantsmanship; personal values; aspirations; lectures; travels; and awards and honors-in short, they enter in the puhlished record many interesting and valuable facts that would otherwise have heen lost forever. Eliel details his Ksfkaesque adventures as a young GermanJewish refugee in dealing with inane governmental bureaucrar~er in fleeing the Nazisand matriculating at the UniversitvofHwana, where hcobtnined his undergraduate degree before emigrating to the United States in July 1946 with a mere $100 in his pocket. Roberts, who originally intended to limit his memoir to narrating how he came to he involved in the field of earbocations and telling the story of his four decades of research on the C4H7+cation-a still unsolved experimental prohlem-describes how he embarked on his pioneering nuclear magnetic resonance studies in the 1950's. Both are utterly candid in dealing with their own work and that of others; Eliel refers to some of his investigations as "pothoilers," and Roberts reveals his early difficulties in teaching elementary organic chemistry a t MIT as well as the "bacchanalian festivities" following the meetings of the editors and editorial board of Organic Syntheses, which "often degenerated into the semblance of a stag smoker, with rounds of off-color jokes, the most tasteless of which usually came from the representstives of the publisher" (which, incidentally, is referred to by name). We also learn that "Rather prodigious quantities of spirits, wines, and brandies were consumed, and some of organic chemistry's most renowned practitioners had to he helped off the scene." Roberts also discusses in a most forthright manner the course of the controversy over nonclassical cations carried on by Herbert C. Brown and the late Saul Winstein. Errors in the first two hooks are minimal and limited to "typos," e.g., J. Wilkinson for G. Wilkinson (Eliel, p. 64) and Raoul Hoffmsnn for Roald Hoffmann and Willstatter fur M'iilsmtter (R
