TYPICAL. You wait years for a history of chemistry, then half a dozen come
along. Trevor Levere begins his book by recommending two of his rivals, which he
describes as 鈥渕ore detailed and longer鈥�. So why bother with Transforming
Matter?
Levere鈥檚 book is commendably clear, with good explanations of numerous
concepts. His discussion of phlogiston is particularly good. But this is no
popular introduction. He has written a textbook, and it has all the strengths
and faults of this genre.
His account of the development of chemistry is highly biased towards chemical
theory and physical chemistry. Jacobus van鈥檛 Hoff and Wilhelm Ostwald are his
heroes. He neglects organic chemistry, by far the largest branch of chemistry
since the 1850s, so you will not find its two giants, Emil Fischer and Robert
Burns Woodward, in the index. Nor will you find more than a few sentences about
analytical chemistry or the chemicals industry. He ignores the environment
completely until the final two pages, so when the ozone hole and smog do finally
appear they lack historical context.
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Transforming Matter is easy to read, but it lacks any anecdotes to relieve
the historical narrative and fails to convey the drama and passion of the
history of chemistry. It is an excellent textbook for practising chemists and
chemistry students. The general reader, fresh from Mauve or
Mendeleyev鈥檚 Dream, is likely to be left with the erroneous view that
a scholarly history of chemistry must inevitably be boring.