Choice Review

This book should be in every library that serves anyone even remotely connected with chemistry. Although nominally offering a text for second-year chemistry students, Swaddle provides a unique array of topics not available in any other single volume. Interspersed throughout are discussions of the theory and practical applications of inorganic chemistry, covering an exceptional range of industrial and environmental topics. An excellent introductory discussion of thermodynamics and kinetics, along with a quite adequate introduction to the solid state, serves as the background for detailed descriptions of the chemistry of inorganic polymers, semiconductors, metallurgy, catalysis, ion-exchange materials, glasses, atmospheric chemistry and pollution control, agriculture, cement, water conditioning, fuel cells, corrosion of metals, and some of the latest in solid-state chemistry (gels, electronic materials, superconductive materials, and fullerenes). The chemical background of many topics with current political and environmental overtones are presented in a technical, unbiased manner, e.g., use of ammonium compounds as fertilizers (and terrorist bombs); paper production and recycling (and the use of sulfite and chlorine bleaching compounds); water treatment (and sewage control); and processes for extracting metals from their ores (and the environmental consequences of these processes). The writing is clear, the production quality first-rate, and the references as current as is practically feasible in a printed book. Most of the references are to recent review articles in readily available journals, so that further research on a given topic is facilitated. As Swaddle states: "The central purpose of this book is to explain the role of inorganic chemistry in the modern world and to provide a sourcebook of readable proportions for scientists and the interested public." He has clearly succeeded. Undergraduates through professionals; two-year technical program students. R. Rudman; Adelphi University