Rating: 
Summary: quest---Chemical Heritage Magazine
Review: Despite its title, this book actually has rather little to do with Mendeleev (or Mendeleyev, which is the transliteration favored by the author). He appears in the Prologue as a "gnomic figure seated at a vast littered desk," but disappears in the first sentence of the first chapter, eventually reappearing for the denouement in the book's two final chapters. The 250 pages in between are in a sense primarily an interlude to Mendeleev's periodic table as the triumphant solution to the 25-century "quest for the elements." That the book presents the solution as emerging from a dream is unfortunately evocative of another dream in the city of Ghent a few years before Mendeleev's in St. Petersburg.
Even before I began to read Mendeleyev's Dream, however, I felt apprehensive. The list of other books by the author Paul Strathern suggests that he tackles big topics, which are too often sketched in broad penstrokes and treated superficially. Two more of his titles on the inside back of the dust jacket-The Big Idea: Scientists Who Changed the World and Philosophers in 90 Minutes-cemented my uneasiness.
The blurb on the inside front of the dust jacket claims that the author "unravels the dramatic history of chemistry through the quest for the elements." That's a tall order for such a short book (less than 300 pages of text), all the more since the quest for the elements represents only one aspect-albeit a central aspect-of chemistry's expansive and complex history.
Mendeleyev's Dream begins where natural philosophy traditionally begins, with Thales of Miletus. We are taken on a short tour through the rational thought of the great Ancient Greek philosophers and mathematicians before moving on to alchemy, which, despite its "mixed motives" and foolish aims, was nevertheless "the practice which was to give us chemistry." While that is certainly an essential part of chemistry's origins, it overlooks connections to the even older craft traditions, such as dyeing, mining, smelting, and metalworking.
After a visit with Paracelsus and iatrochemistry, the book makes a detour through the beginnings of the scientific revolution. According to the author, this demonstrates the change in thinking necessary to escape such shackles as the four elements, which he terms "one of the biggest blunders in human thought." The story then skips along the alpine peaks of events and colorful personalities in the history of chemistry from van Helmont and Boyle to Newlands and Mendeleev. It's a most entertaining story, and this is the level at which the book is most successful. There are many interesting episodes and anecdotes, and I especially enjoyed the sections on Hennig Brand and the discovery of phosphorus and on the many discoveries of Karl Scheele, who unfortunately received little credit for any of them.
This book is a popular account for the general reader, and the author offers this as his reason for the lack of citations. Consequently, those who know something of chemistry and its history are likely to have a number of quibbles with the author. I certainly do. In addition, I want to offer a significant quibble on behalf of general readers who would not be able to do so themselves. The author proceeds on the premise that past ideas and concepts are worthwhile only insofar as they point toward today's ideas and concepts. I believe that this is a distorted view of the history of science and that it gives general readers significant misconceptions about the movement of science, which sometimes represents progress, but often doesn't.
As far back as Ancient Greece, the atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus appears "breathtakingly modern-far, far ahead of [its] time," whereas Aristotle's compounding of errors "put human intellectual thought on the wrong course for centuries to come." By the time that Johann Döbereiner proposed his law of triads in the 1830s, "chemistry had suffered enough from mistaken theories . . . The way forward now lay through experiment." This hardly suggests the increasingly complex interplay between theory and experiment in chemistry since the mid 19th century.
The author tells us that the ancients knew of nine genuine elements and that three more were discovered in the late Middle Ages. However, "their discoverers did not see them as such, because they didn't know what an element was." I would contend that ancient and medieval natural philosophers knew what an element was as well as we do. It's just that their concept doesn't coincide with ours. But for the author of Mendeleyev's Dream, that means not knowing.
This same attitude about the past as seen from the vantage point of the present appears in various claims and statements scattered through the book. "Separating truth from legend is always easy afterwards, when we can apply modern criteria." "At least half of Newton's intellectual life was wasted on nonscientific pursuits." "The idea of a feminine metal was evidently anathema to the Victorian English scientific establishment. This was to be the start of a distressing trend. All elements discovered since 1839 . . . have been given the Latin neuter ending -ium, or the Greek neuter -on in the case of the inert gases. This sexless nomenclature was even extended to curium, which was named after Madame Curie. . . . This choice of gender was presumably made with no conscious derogatory intent, but one can't help feeling that it says something about the predominantly male society of chemists."
While conveniently omitting any mention of elements such as mendelevium, the author doesn't mind telling us something about a few of the male members of the Royal Society. Newton's celibacy ensured "that he didn't have to admit his repressed homosexual inclinations even to himself," yet he was able to impress their "effect on the scientific world at large." In addition, his presidency of the Royal Society enshrined in it the misogyny that Robert Hooke had previously encouraged. I fail to see the relevance of these gibes, which seem to be included for no other reason than being politically correct. They're minor, but they detract from the book.
Unfortunately, these minor detractions, along with the author's attitudes about scientific progress, are a major flaw in his entertaining and panoramic sketch of the quest for the elements. While I enjoyed the author's lively story, I did not find this a satisfying book. Ultimately, I must conclude that it is flawed both for those who know something of chemistry and its history, as well as for its intended audience, those who don't.
Rating:
Summary: quest---Chemical Heritage Magazine
Review: Despite its title, this book actually has rather little to do with Mendeleev (or Mendeleyev, which is the transliteration favored by the author). He appears in the Prologue as a "gnomic figure seated at a vast littered desk," but disappears in the first sentence of the first chapter, eventually reappearing for the denouement in the book's two final chapters. The 250 pages in between are in a sense primarily an interlude to Mendeleev's periodic table as the triumphant solution to the 25-century "quest for the elements." That the book presents the solution as emerging from a dream is unfortunately evocative of another dream in the city of Ghent a few years before Mendeleev's in St. Petersburg.
Even before I began to read Mendeleyev's Dream, however, I felt apprehensive. The list of other books by the author Paul Strathern suggests that he tackles big topics, which are too often sketched in broad penstrokes and treated superficially. Two more of his titles on the inside back of the dust jacket-The Big Idea: Scientists Who Changed the World and Philosophers in 90 Minutes-cemented my uneasiness.
The blurb on the inside front of the dust jacket claims that the author "unravels the dramatic history of chemistry through the quest for the elements." That's a tall order for such a short book (less than 300 pages of text), all the more since the quest for the elements represents only one aspect-albeit a central aspect-of chemistry's expansive and complex history.
Mendeleyev's Dream begins where natural philosophy traditionally begins, with Thales of Miletus. We are taken on a short tour through the rational thought of the great Ancient Greek philosophers and mathematicians before moving on to alchemy, which, despite its "mixed motives" and foolish aims, was nevertheless "the practice which was to give us chemistry." While that is certainly an essential part of chemistry's origins, it overlooks connections to the even older craft traditions, such as dyeing, mining, smelting, and metalworking.
After a visit with Paracelsus and iatrochemistry, the book makes a detour through the beginnings of the scientific revolution. According to the author, this demonstrates the change in thinking necessary to escape such shackles as the four elements, which he terms "one of the biggest blunders in human thought." The story then skips along the alpine peaks of events and colorful personalities in the history of chemistry from van Helmont and Boyle to Newlands and Mendeleev. It's a most entertaining story, and this is the level at which the book is most successful. There are many interesting episodes and anecdotes, and I especially enjoyed the sections on Hennig Brand and the discovery of phosphorus and on the many discoveries of Karl Scheele, who unfortunately received little credit for any of them.
This book is a popular account for the general reader, and the author offers this as his reason for the lack of citations. Consequently, those who know something of chemistry and its history are likely to have a number of quibbles with the author. I certainly do. In addition, I want to offer a significant quibble on behalf of general readers who would not be able to do so themselves. The author proceeds on the premise that past ideas and concepts are worthwhile only insofar as they point toward today's ideas and concepts. I believe that this is a distorted view of the history of science and that it gives general readers significant misconceptions about the movement of science, which sometimes represents progress, but often doesn't.
As far back as Ancient Greece, the atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus appears "breathtakingly modern-far, far ahead of [its] time," whereas Aristotle's compounding of errors "put human intellectual thought on the wrong course for centuries to come." By the time that Johann Döbereiner proposed his law of triads in the 1830s, "chemistry had suffered enough from mistaken theories . . . The way forward now lay through experiment." This hardly suggests the increasingly complex interplay between theory and experiment in chemistry since the mid 19th century.
The author tells us that the ancients knew of nine genuine elements and that three more were discovered in the late Middle Ages. However, "their discoverers did not see them as such, because they didn't know what an element was." I would contend that ancient and medieval natural philosophers knew what an element was as well as we do. It's just that their concept doesn't coincide with ours. But for the author of Mendeleyev's Dream, that means not knowing.
This same attitude about the past as seen from the vantage point of the present appears in various claims and statements scattered through the book. "Separating truth from legend is always easy afterwards, when we can apply modern criteria." "At least half of Newton's intellectual life was wasted on nonscientific pursuits." "The idea of a feminine metal was evidently anathema to the Victorian English scientific establishment. This was to be the start of a distressing trend. All elements discovered since 1839 . . . have been given the Latin neuter ending -ium, or the Greek neuter -on in the case of the inert gases. This sexless nomenclature was even extended to curium, which was named after Madame Curie. . . . This choice of gender was presumably made with no conscious derogatory intent, but one can't help feeling that it says something about the predominantly male society of chemists."
While conveniently omitting any mention of elements such as mendelevium, the author doesn't mind telling us something about a few of the male members of the Royal Society. Newton's celibacy ensured "that he didn't have to admit his repressed homosexual inclinations even to himself," yet he was able to impress their "effect on the scientific world at large." In addition, his presidency of the Royal Society enshrined in it the misogyny that Robert Hooke had previously encouraged. I fail to see the relevance of these gibes, which seem to be included for no other reason than being politically correct. They're minor, but they detract from the book.
Unfortunately, these minor detractions, along with the author's attitudes about scientific progress, are a major flaw in his entertaining and panoramic sketch of the quest for the elements. While I enjoyed the author's lively story, I did not find this a satisfying book. Ultimately, I must conclude that it is flawed both for those who know something of chemistry and its history, as well as for its intended audience, those who don't.
Rating: 
Summary: Loses a bit of credibility at the end.
Review: I thought this was a quite engaging book until I neared the end, and the author's science started to get a little sketchy. His description of why warm Coke is fizzier than cold Coke seems to be wrong, and in the final chapter about Mendeleyev, there are a couple of mistakes, such as confusing bismuth with boron, and a bizarre confusion between uranium and indium, which looks like it needs explaining. All in all a decent book let down by these oversights.
Rating: 
Summary: Dream? More like a coma!
Review: If Mendeleyev had the opportunity to read this... boy would he dream. It has to be the best cure for insomnia I've ever stumbled upon. There is far too much history and not enough Mendeleyev or periodic table - the reasons I bought the book in the first place. At two thirds of the way through, the only things keeping me going are sheer willpower to get to Meneleyev's cameo role and the fact I've cheated and flicked to the end so I know I'll get to it eventually. Definate thumbs down for anyone wanting to know more about the elements but fine for anyone wanting to know what inspired the research. Chemistry fascinates me... this book does not.
Rating:
Summary: Dream? More like a coma!
Review: If Mendeleyev had the opportunity to read this... boy would he dream. It has to be the best cure for insomnia I've ever stumbled upon. There is far too much history and not enough Mendeleyev or periodic table - the reasons I bought the book in the first place. At two thirds of the way through, the only things keeping me going are sheer willpower to get to Meneleyev's cameo role and the fact I've cheated and flicked to the end so I know I'll get to it eventually. Definate thumbs down for anyone wanting to know more about the elements but fine for anyone wanting to know what inspired the research. Chemistry fascinates me... this book does not.
Rating:
Summary: Too elementary
Review: If you are looking for a genuine history of chemistry centered on the development of the periodic table--as the title and subtitle imply--then look elsewhere. This book provides a spotty history of science emphasizing the personalities involved, with greatest coverage of ancient and medieval figures. Overall, it was quite disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: Explains Mendeleyev's Dream
Review: The title is slightly misleading, as the book is mostly about alchemy, philosophers and other discoverers of elements and chemical principles. But what a super book - it begins and ends with Mendeleyev, yet in between we are treated to a complete history of the groundwork that went into the discovery and classification of the elements. We meet many famous names, some not-so-famous and a few unsung tyros, along with their discoveries and what led up to them. Many of the discoveries were accidental, others through hard work and the rest by following scientific principles.All of this is far from dull; the author has an undercurrent of subtle humour running through the whole book, making one break out into a wry smile every now and then. The key players in this 'dream' are the names that we remember from school, but have forgotten who they were, what they did and why ... this reminds us and fills in a lot of blanks, as well as fleshing out the characters - why they were like that and how they became drawn ino the field of alchemy/chemistry - some for mercenary gain, others for more esoteric reasons.
We also hear other names not normally associated with Science - Borodin (music), Francis Bacon (plays), Lucretius (poetry) and many more. I shall read more of this author's works, if they are in the same vein as this - a thoroughly absorbing and gratifying read!
Rating:
Summary: Vivid writing on an apparently dull subject
Review: This book provides a vivid history of chemistry, centered around a literary conceit: Mendeleyev's dream. It is an admirable effort in a field that sees few of any vitality.
The only distressing flaw is the advocacy of Nicolas of Cusa as having exposed the fraudulence of the Donantion of Constantine. Convention has it that it was Lorenzo Valla who did so; Strathern ought to have acknowledged this. Some scholars will insist that it was Valla, however, a history of chemistry is not the place for advocating unusual theories on other subjects.
Otherwise, a great read! Very plucky.
Rating:
Summary: There are better chemical histories available
Review: This is an odd book, and a poor history of chemistry. It is not a history of the elements (as the book jacket states) nor a description of Mendeleyev's work. In fact, the author devoted only 13% of the book to Mendeleyev and the periodic table, and over twice that heaping scorn upon ancient Greek philosophers. His description of the Arab alchemists and alchemy philosophy is excellent. After that, he loses his way, and, by the end of the book, Strathern has made it plain he is not a chemist and has little appreciation of the struggle to make a new and unknown reaction proceed down a desired pathway. Scientists noted for theories receive much more attention than specific advances. No mention is made the development of the balance and a definition of mass units or standard volumes to allow chemists to communicate. Lavoisier is grandly proclaimed as, "the Newton of chemistry," and Dalton, whose work on atomic weights and stoichiometery, -- providing chemistry the basic structure needed to advance and is still used by every practicing chemist -- is given the short shift on p. 261 when it is declared that "possessor of the finest chemical mind since Lavoisier" is Mendeleyev. This is a staggering statement, considering that Berzelius, Faraday, Davy, Thompson, Guy-Lussac, Kekule, Perkins, Avogardo, Liebig, Pasteur and many other fine chemists were active during that period.
How Mendeleyev used his table is not covered, and that the table's true value lay in the future in developing chemical bonding and valance theories is only hinted at. The reader is left with an unflattering picture of Mendeleyev (Rumpelstiltskin is mentioned more times than Dalton), and the book ends as it started, talking about dairy farmers.
Rating:
Summary: Worth Re-Reading
Review: This is an outstanding book if you are very interested in both history and science. Some earlier reviewer were disappointed in not finding more information about chemistry, but it's not a chemistry book, it's a history book. A better book about the elements, including each specific element and how each was discovered, is "A Guide to the Elements" by Stwertka. This book is about the history of chemistry, culminating in Mendeleyev's realization of the periodic table - the "order" in the chemical world that people had been looking for. It's not a book about Mendeleyev, but about his dream, which was every Chemist's dream. Hence, the title Mendeleyev's DREAM. Strathern has a great grasp of history and an unusual ability to condense complex historical events into just a few sentences. This helps the reader understand the context within with various events take place -- extremely important. The reader who already has a grasp of some basic world history will get more out of this book, however. I particularly liked how Strathern describes the various characters with warts and all. It makes it so much more fascinating! They are complex people with ambitions, phobias, superstitions, arrogence and so on. The lives of these people are stories in and of themselves, and Strathern makes these stories both readable and believable. I often found myself shaking my head in amazement and/or amusement. There were some complaints in earlier reviews about Strathern spending too much time on Medieval and Ancient times. I didn't think that was a problem at all. I found it all very interesting, then again, I'm interested Ancient and Medieval History. I think it's important to learn what went on prior to modern science, back in the days of alchemy and elixers. It makes modern science look pretty good. After I was done with the book I found myself picking it up over and over again, re-reading various passages, still shaking my head in amazement.
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