Customer Reviews

Mechanism and Theory in Organic Chemistry (3rd Edition)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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This text is indeed a classic, and despite the efforts of authors like Anslyn and Dougherty, remains essential in the education of any serious student of chemistry. But make no mistake: this is an old text, unchanged for decades, and despite the density of the subject matter, it lacks any kind of solutions manual. No one will hold your hand along the way. So as not to give the wrong impression, however, Lowry and Richardson's is a surprisingly well-written text. No doubt this was hailed as a breakthrough in chemistry education when it was published. Although the subject matter is quite dense, it is difficult to find yourself lost here. The authors are gifted educators.

Yet in many ways, Anslyn and Dougherty's is a superior text for the current generation of chemistry students. It's fantastically modern, written with a lucid style, and bursting at the seams (literally--it has a lousy binding) with connections, citations, reference tables, and almost anything else you could possibly ask for. That's also why it's a much larger text than Lowry and Richardson's. Nonetheless, I actually find Anslyn and Dougherty's to be a joy to read, from cover to cover. I'm not so sure I would say that about Lowry and Richardson's text.

Anslyn and Dougherty no doubt sought to modernize this important subject as well as highlight its connections to other disciplines, yet I do not believe they sought to usurp the authority of Lowry and Richardson's classic text. There is simply more rigor, more foundation here. Ultimately, the serious student must read both (as sick as that sounds, at nearly 2000 combined pages), in whatever order suits him.

This is the deeper and best book I have of physical organic chemistry. It's a classic.

Mechanism and Theory in Organic Chemistry is an "old-school" type of textbook. There are no answers to the problems at the end of the chapters. Further, there is no solution manual. The "old-school" philosophy was to make the student slog through the assigned problems, and then contact the teacher for the answers. This approach is fine in some circumstances, but troublesome for those who need to learn the material on their own. As such, the textbook is not very good for self-learning.

The authors did a good job of presenting the material. After reading a chapter, one can walk away thinking he has a good understanding of the material. Of course, the student really has no way to test this.

A much better text for physical organic chemistry is "Modern Physical Organic Chemistry" by Anslyn and Dougherty. I recommend getting their solutions manual as well as their text.

the first advanced organic chemistry book concerned with the basic concepts that lead the reader to an deep approach to this subject.