Introductory courses in chemistry for students who are in technical fields of study or in colleges where open enrollment practices are prevalent tend to use textbooks that seem to be nothing more than watered-down versions of general chemistry textbooks for science and engineering students. Corwin attempts to present a textbook that takes a conceptual approach to introductory chemistry, with mixed results.

The text is set up much like texts based on Pauling's General Chemistry, with chapters on nuclear, organic, and biological chemistry found at the very end. There are color pictures of ordinary chemicals and everyday items throughout the text, as well as many sections that link chemical processes and discoveries with common events such as the Olympics and ozone depletion in a plain, well-written style. There are also sections called Updates that provide some of the latest chemical innovations, such as the latest attempts to accurately determine Avogadro's number or IUPAC's naming of elements 104-109 (which happened late in 1997). Brilliant explanations stand out in my mind: first, relating American money to the metric system, which I use in all of my introductory classes; second, using two milk bottles held mouth-to-mouth with two fireflies inside to illustrate p orbitals. Summaries, key concepts, and exercises involving key terms are found at the end of each chapter, and cumulative reviews are found every two-to-three chapters, all being well-written and straightforward.

However, I felt that the metric system (Chapter 3) was introduced too late, as problems with metric units appeared as early as Chapter 2, the chapter discussing measurements. Corwin also makes a feeble attempt to introduce collision theory in Chapter 16, Chemical Equilibrium; it would be better served without the discussion. Also, Chapter 17, Oxidation-Reduction Reactions, seems unnecessary to me; pertinent topics such as oxidation number could be incorporated into earlier chapters. As with books written for allied-health majors, it seems to me that the incorporation of nuclear and organic chemistry into earlier chapters would be beneficial and practical, lending to further conceptualization of the subject.

The standard ancillaries available for all Prentice-Hall chemistry texts are available with this one. It was humorous to me to find that the "Life on the Internet" copy that came with the Corwin text did not have a cover based on the text, but the copy that came with my 7th edition of Brown, LeMay, and Bursten did! Otherwise, it's the same book. The "Themes of the Times" newspaper supplement was outdated, listing as an article the Nobel Prize winners of 1996. Prentice-Hall's Web site listed in the preface did not have any links to Corwin's text or to similar texts, but only to books for science and engineering majors. The Chemistry SkillBuilder CD-ROM (to be reviewed separately) comes free with the textbook.

Am I one who believes, like many writers in this Journal, that the introductory chemistry curriculum needs some revision to make it more relevant? I certainly do. I want an introductory nonmajors course to be something besides preschool physical chemistry. Corwin is certainly making an excellent effort to do just that; however, it may take another edition of the text before the "concepts and connections" steer the course away from the content of its big brother General Chemistry.