The Historical Background of Chemistry

I picked this up because I wanted to understand how alchemy transitioned into chemistry. The first half or so is really this part and the more interesting aspect, up to about the 17th century. The second half is the development of chemistry as a science and reads a lot like accounts of similar fields.

This was written in the 1950s and has a big "Men of Science" vibe -- I'm pretty sure women are mentioned twice: once to say "the names of women appear among [first century] alchemists" and much later, a sentence for Marie Curie, who is cast as a "young investigator" for her husband. And obviously as its summary draws closer to the age in which it was written, it becomes less accurate.

I enjoyed this but the treatment is pretty short; I guess it served as a reasonable introduction. Each chapter has a number of references so probably the next stop is to dig into some of those, like the enticingly titled "History of Magic and Experimental Science".

Much less of a chore to read this than Ihde's Development of Modern Chemistry. This is probably all the history of the subject a high school teacher would need and more. The big lesson to me was that the science could never get traction until chemists started sharing their discoveries and working off each other's work. Getting the physicists, geologists, astronomers.... all working together was the next step. The book does a nice basic job explaining why Physical Chemists and Organic Chemists were/are so different in their outlook. It could use another couple of chapters to bring the last decades up to date.

This is an absolutely fantastic book. Although the book follows the history of chemistry through the ages, this book could just as easily be a historical background on alchemy. This book provides a clear and easy to follow progression of alchemy through the ages from Egypt to China to England. It also outlines the main goals and contributions made by each of the cultures. Out of print, but not hard to find. Worth a read.