Organic Chemistry Principles in Context: A Story Telling Historical Approach
“This book is like no other organic chemistry textbook. Principles in Context is a creative and daring approach to teaching organic chemistry, and it might just be the way to get our students intrigued about the subject.” Jeffrey Moore, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign"This is a marvelous piece of work. It looks like the author is taking an unconventional approach to teaching chemistry, but as he explains in the preface to this book, it is in fact a very natural one. It is the way by which we make ourselves familiar with new things: we hear about it, become interested and go deeper into it. I hope that this book will be brought to the attention of many teachers all over the world. The students deserve it.” Roeland Nolte, Royal Netherlands Academy of Science Professor Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands"This is the most interesting organic chemistry textbook I have read since my days as an undergraduate student. It weaves together all of the fundamentals of organic chemistry into stories/problems of relevance to society, with an eye on the historical development of the field. I would love to use this book to teach chemistry majors and honors students. I learned a lot from this truly unique approach to teaching organic chemistry.” David Hart, Department of Chemistry, Ohio State University“I think you have done something really interesting; so much so that I read it with much more care than I might have. I found myself caught up in seeing how you managed to get (nearly) everything into the book in a most unusual order.” Ian Fleming, Cambridge University, United Kingdom"Congratulations - a masterwork. I would have liked to learn organic chemistry through such a book. I fully share with you the opinion that teaching science through history is the most logical way to attract the interest of the beginners in the field and to show them how discoveries are made." Meir Lahav, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel“Since Organic Chemistry has been taught for more than 100 years, you would have thought that there have been so many different approaches that it would be impossible to find a new way. Well, Mark Green has managed to find an innovative and fascinating way to interest students – he calls it a story-telling historical approach.  It begins with quite complex issues – Chapter 1 is entitled “From Cellulose and Starch to the Principles of Stereochemistry” using carbohydrate chemistry to illustrate the ideas presented, but his story-telling approach should make it relatively easy for students/readers to grasp the fundamentals. The chapter is full of names and pictures of scientists putting the history of organic chemistry, as well as its principles, into context.  Subsequent chapters cover spectroscopy, mechanisms and carbocations, the latter in two chapters with industrial and natural product examples. After other chapters covering topics such as aromatic chemistry, carbonyl chemistry, carbanions, radicals and polymers and industrial chemistry, the final two chapters cover synthesis.  All the chapters are beautifully integrated and written in a journalistic, readable style rather than the usual “stodgy” text book approach, making this book one of the most unusual and interesting “text” books I have read for ages. Industrial examples are woven into each chapter integrating the organic chemistry principles with practical application.  Whilst intended for students, all those interested in organic chemistry will learn from reading this fascinating account.”  High recommended, for all ages!” Trevor Laird, Editor, Scientific Update, United KingdomWhat if everything you think you know about chemistry textbooks is wrong? In his book, What the Best College Teachers Do, Ken Bain states several times that expert instructors grab the attention of their class and stimulate motivation in part by leading with an intriguing question or stimulating case study. Students need to buy into something important, beautiful, practical or artistic before meaningful learning can take place. In embracing this idea, Mark Green of the Polytechnic Institute of New York University turns the traditional undergraduate organic chemistry textbook upside-down in his shockingly affordable new textbook Organic Chemistry Principles in Context. In fact, the most noticeable aspect of this textbook is its deviation of what many academics would consider ‘mainstream’ or ‘accepted.’ …………….. The most common illustration in this textbook is a portrait of a chemist whose contributions led to the essential concept being taught. The chemistry of the present day is understood by visiting the chemists of the past, sometimes by reading their own words from seminal publications. In many ways, the textbook reads like a script for a documentary about organic chemistry. The historical context draws the students into the thematic stories and entices them to invest in education for education sake………..This textbook offers a fascinating and dramatic change to the landscape of textbook choice.  Nature Chemistry May 2013“Science has stories in it……..These narrative qualities are not only important in composing research papers, but also to effective teaching. An innovative, recent chemical text, Mark Green’s *Organic Chemistry Principles in Context: A Story Telling Historical Approach, *makes consistent use of storytelling by focusing on particular chemical problems and the lives of the chemists who solved these problems.”Roald Hoffmann, in “The Tensions of Scientific Story Telling,” American Scientist, Volume 102, pages 250-253.