Customer Reviews

Caveman Chemistry: 28 Projects, from the Creation of Fire to the Production of Plastics

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm using this book in a college chemistry class for nonscience majors. Dunn's writing is a bit eccentric, no doubt, but the projects are great and my students are engaged as never before, so--I win!

Science books that are intended to be marketed both as trade books and as textbooks generally fail at both. Often the two goals are just incompatible. Dunn has achieved something special here: he has done a nice job of resolving the conflicts between these two goals. The text is rigorous enough to be used in a general-college class, yet accessible to any interested person looking for a nifty science project (or a handbook for surviving the collapse of civilization!)...and as a bonus, it's a great read. In addition he maintains an extremely helpful website for the book; I have learned almost as much about the projects from reading the comments of his students as from reading the book, and having a central place for errata to be posted online is very convenient for my students.

I'd love to see a character in the next Mad-Max-style post-apocalypse movie pull out a copy of Caveman Chemistry and start a fire with two sticks, or make soap starting with ashes. But even if civilization survives, I will take consolation in this: with the projects in this book, we can participate in a tradition of human technology going back 500,000 years.

As a current chemistry major with a long and sordid history of odd compounds, this book is a JOY to read even for me. It is this type of writing that truly brings "normal" non-scientific readers into the realm of the laboratory.
It is fact and procedure written in a style that is instantly comfortable and reasonably non-technical. As one reviewer stated, THIS is what required reading should be.
Everyone is worried about the "brain drain" in the US right now. If books like this were present in the arena of primary education for the last ten years, we wouldn't have anything to worry about. For people that can't immediately "dream this stuff in color" it is books like this that create a first breach in the dam that is our current bureaucratic education system.

I just finished reading the book, and even though I admit I haven't gotten my hands "black with charcoal" on even a single project, this was probably the best science book I have ever read.

The author's style was weird and entertaining, the concepts were well explained (though I had to go over chapter 7 a few times).

I even learned an answer to a question I had as a child that no one knew how to answer (why did it hurt when I bit down on aluminum?).

I was truly amazed at the evolution of history of chemicals and how industries came to be built from virtually nothing - and not only that, but how you can make the same chemicals and projects at home.

I plan to read the book again and try some of the experiments.

I wish I had had a course based on this book in college, in high school, in elementary school - at any point.

In short, if you are interested in understanding the basic chemical processes in the world around you and their history, where common products you buy from the store come from and how to make them on your own, and of course, how to make fire, paper, pharmaceuticals, and explosives - then this is the book for you.

Not being a student of chemistry did not prevent me from making some awesome projects presented in this book. It gives history, method, and the chemistry behind 28 useful and fun projects. The four characters (earth, wind, fire, and water) give the book an organization that I have not seen before in a chemistry text. Also, and perhaps the most interesting, the book is full of jokes, funny stories, and song bits that keep the reader laughing and wrapped into the projects. I enjoyed the book and projects that come along with it, and would recommend it to anybody, even the non-chemistry types like myself. Enjoy!

I had a horrible chemistry teacher in high school who made the subject pure hell for everyone in his class. Years later I began to become interested in science. Caveman Chemistry is hands down one of the best chemistry/science books on the market. It's very easy to grasp the subject matter and Dunn makes it entertaining along the way. He doesn't knock the reader over the head with formula but introduces all the "boring stuff" by relating it to hands-on projects. For a novice of chemistry or someone with no idea at all, Kevin Dunn(a true teacher and very rare breed) makes it very interesting and dare I say exciting. One of the best teaching methods I've ever read!

II took a chemistry class way back in high school and found it a complete bore. All we learned about was numbers and letters. Every once and a while the teacher would do a cool experiment like throwing liquid nitrogen on the floor but nothing really made sense. Though high school chemistry bored me to tears I still had a bit of interest in the subject so I decided to investigate. My investigation led me to this book and I have to say this book not only makes chemistry sensible but it also makes it extremely interesting and personable. Never before did I ever think that the plastic industry today was built from a gunpowder foundation. If you are at all interested by chemistry read this book and that intimidating Periodic Table of Elements will be tranformed into fire, alcohol, gunpowder, and acid. I highly recommend this book to anyone that wants to understand chemistry instead of just memorizing boring chemical equations.

I must say, I got sucked into this book like a novel. Granted, I like information about the history of technology anyway, but this presented it in a fun and wacky format - and frankly fun and wacky is nice for a change. The dialogue of the memes gets entertaining, particularly towards the end when they start arguing with each other and with their own author.

I read it during a busy time in my life and haven't completed any of the projects yet (though I have started making my glass arrowhead from a beer bottle). I do plan to at least finish the arrowhead, spin some twine out of my malamute's undercoat and dye it blue, and brew some mead at home. I wonder how my homemade mead will taste with a dash of orange peel and cloves... I may also get around to making fire and paper.

I don't have easy access to a kiln, so smelting my own copper and making glass may not happen unless I can find a used one cheap on craigslist.

This is an excellent book for anyone who wants a better appreciation of the chemical industry that props up our lifestyle ... and just how far it goes back. If we tried to live without chemical processes, as a few ill-informed people propose these days, we wouldn't lose just our plastics and lithium-ion iPhone batteries. We'd also lose our soap and paper and glass and bricks and mortar and beer. We would never have even entered the bronze age, and would be barely beyond hunting and gathering.

This is the most interesting thing I've read all year! I'm glad I didn't find this in high school because I am positive that I would've gotten myself expelled. If you decide to make mead, buy some yeast that is designed to make alcoholic beverages. Bread yeast makes it taste like...you guessed it...uncooked bread dough. That dough had one hell of a kick, though!

Kevin Dunn has accomplished a rare feat in science book publishing: He has written a science book that is almost a page-turner. I always wanted to try to start a fire with a bow drill. He has written a procedure that makes me want to get my hands dirty just to see if it works. The complexity of the science matches the way humans learned to use the materials we found on the path to civilization. The book is as interesting and accurate as a text of the history of science. I remember being amazed that so many of the elements were already named before the modern era. The book mentions stone age, copper age, and iron age technologies and turning points and necessary knowlege for the change to occur. I enjoyed the first reading greatly.

Being at a college that has a course taught using this book is great. The book is an interesting way to get people hooked into science. Me being an humanities not math or science major, I never understood either math nor science, until I read this book for the class. Reading the chapters and doing the projects is a fun and interactive method of getting the other majors some basic knowledge and interest in the field that will hopefully grow. Most of all though being able to take the class with the author is another. In my four years at college, that B+ I got from Dr. Dunn is the hardest and yet most satisfying grade I have ever earned.