It is becoming increasingly important that future college graduates should be chemically literate so that they can understand how chemistry is important to solving many problems that face humanity today. Students who take a course based on this innovative and highly readable text should acquire a good understanding of the chemists view of the world and will have a sound good basis for becoming the much needed chemically literate citizen of the future.

The author summarizes the philosophy of his book in the introduction, "We (the professional chemist and teacher) see chemistry as a coherent rational whole, and we transmit this model of the chemical universe to our students. Yet I have found . . . . that merely transmitting this model is insufficient and unsatisfying to both the teacher and the student. It is important to teach not only the coherent model . . . . but to demonstrate why we are forced to accept the model." In other words, experiment comes before theory. Students need to know why we believe what we do. Consistent with this philosophy each chapter begins with a demonstration that can be performed with simple apparatus and common substances that lead to observations and conclusions about the chemistry of "ordinary things". It is a pity that this philosophy is not followed by many general chemistry texts for science students which so often introduce concepts and theories before the experimental basis for them.

Another good feature of the book is that definitions, concepts, symbols and the like are introduced on a need-to-know basis. As the author says, " It makes more sense to explain and describe the world around us as we encounter it, rather than to start by defining and categorizing ideas well before we need to use them." This is another feature that would improve many general chemistry texts that often start a section or chapter with definitions and concepts without first explaining why they are needed.

The author is to be commended in writing this second edition on not allowing the book to grow in length. By combining four chapters into two and adding only one new chapter the book has increased in length by only 20 pages. Generally the organization and chapter headings are very similar to the first edition. But there is new material, for example, on surfactants and DNA, new illustrations and many new problems. The problems emphasize the understanding of concepts rather than plugging numbers into formulas.

Of course there are a few errors that should be corrected and some topics that could, in the reviewer's opinion, have received a better treatment.

In a figure (p 50) showing the transfer of an electron from a sodium atom to a chlorine atom to give a sodium ion and chloride ion the chlorine atom is unfortunately labelled a chloride atom.

In some places unstable is used instead of the more accurate reactive. For example (p 51) it is stated that the removal of an electron from a chlorine atom would give the very unstable Cl+ ion. To most students something that is unstable means something that decomposes or falls apart. It would be preferable and indeed more accurate to state that a Cl+ would be very reactive and would rapidly gain another electron.

The treatment of equilibrium is not too satisfactory. The concept of equilibrium is very briefly mentioned early (p 60) but is not discussed again until Chapter 10 on Acids and Bases. Even here it is not made clear that at equilibrium forward and back reactions are proceeding at the same rate, so that is why the concentrations of reactants and products do not change. It is misleading to say that Le Ch‰telier's Principle "helps keep your body's pH within a very narrow range." Le Châtelier's principle is just a useful summary of observations and not a reason why. Equilibrium does not appear in the glossary and has even mysteriously disappeared from the index in the second edition.

The concept of reaction rate is barely mentioned, but surely students need some understanding of why some reactions are very slow and others are very fast. This can be done without subjecting them to the difficult concepts of reaction order and rate laws. In this connection more emphasis could be given to the fundamental idea that atoms and molecules are in constant motion and that their speeds increase with increasing temperature leading to reactions when molecules collide with sufficient energy.

The treatment of bonding is very satisfactory for this group of students, but it is a pity that the author does not go further than stating that atoms are held together in a covalent bond by the sharing of a pair of electrons. The only forces that are important in chemistry are electrostatic forces. The atoms in a covalent bond are held together by the electrostatic force between the electron pair and the positive cores of the two atoms. The covalent bond does not involve some mysterious new force that seems so often to be implied. It is then easier to understand how there can be a continuous transition in bond type from ionic to covalent.

It is good to see an early introduction to organic chemistry because so many organic compounds are encountered in everyday life and organic chemistry is such an important branch of chemistry. Structural formulas are used extensively for organic compounds but are surprisingly lacking for inorganic compounds. How is a student to make sense of formulas such as H2CO3, H2SO4, SO2, SO3 etc. unless structural formulas are given? They will have no basis for understanding the formulas or the reactions of these substances, and they simply will have to memorize them.

Despite these relatively minor criticisms this is a very good text for the nonscience students course. It should hold the students interest and give them a good understanding of the chemists view of the world. There is much in it to interest and inspire instructors, not only those who teach the nonscience students course but also those who teach general chemistry.