Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews
Inorganic Chemistry
by Gary Wulfsberg
University Science Books: Sausalito, CA, 2000. xix + 978 pp.
Figures and tables. ISBN 1-891389-01-7. $88.00.
reviewed by Martin N. Ackermann
Many teachers of inorganic chemistry are likely to have
some familiarity with Principles of Descriptive Inorganic Chem-
istry by Gary Wulfsberg (reviewed in J. Chem. Educ. 1988,
65, A169), which is intended for an introductory inorganic
course. PDIC first appeared in 1987 and is still in print.
Wulfsberg’s new effort, Inorganic Chemistry, is intended for the
advanced inorganic course and incorporates all the material
from PDIC and a great deal more.
The text is divided into main two parts. Part I consists of
eight chapters, all but one drawing extensively from PDIC but
with new or expanded coverage. The first chapter treats atomic
structure and periodic trends of atoms and ions. Chapters
2–5 emphasize acid–base concepts and their use in organizing
and understanding a large amount of chemistry. Lattice energy
and solubility trends also appear here. The use of predominance
diagrams, which show the predominant form of an element as
a function of pH, for analysis of Brønsted acid–base reactions
and solubility was new to me and looks to be an effective
approach. Trends in coordination equilibria are organized
around hard and soft acid–base theory. HSAB theory then is
employed extensively in the rest of the text. Chapter 6, on
oxidation–reduction, uses both predominance diagrams, now
based on potential, and Pourbaix diagrams but not Latimer
diagrams. Chapter 7 develops thermochemical analyses of
reactivity trends, and Chapter 8 introduces crystal and ligand
field theories and their applications.
The nine chapters in Part II deal with symmetry and
group theory; molecular orbital theory; organometallic chem-
istry of d-block elements; the elements and their physical
properties; the oxides of the elements; the halides, nitrides, and
sulfides of the elements; hydrides, alkyls, and aryls; inor-
ganic reaction mechanisms; and advanced topics, including
excited electronic states, photochemistry, and activated mol-
ecules. The treatment of group theory takes students only to
the level of understanding what an irreducible representation
means. Generating reducible representations and extracting
the irreducible representations is not included. This limits the
molecular orbital analysis of complex molecules to recognizing
ligand and orbital patterns in order to interpret or create
molecular orbital energy level diagrams.
The author envisages that an advanced course would go
quickly or selectively through Part I and then focus on Part II.
This is a workable approach, but surely will be demanding
of students. Unless they have had a prior course in inorganic
chemistry, most of what is in Part I will be new to them.
Even with a prior inorganic course, the novel approach taken in
many of the chapters is almost certain to be quite different
from what students have previously seen and will require extra
time to cover. Anyone adopting Inorganic Chemistry will need
1412 Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 77 No. 11 November 2000 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
to give careful consideration to how to integrate what they
use from Part I and Part II.
Another option is to use this text for both the introduc-
tory and the advanced inorganic courses in a curriculum that
includes both. Part I, which does not require the use of
molecular orbital theory, and selected portions of Part II
would be suitable for the introductory course. However, the
concepts of hybridization and resonance may need additional
support if students have not had an organic course, since this
background is assumed. The remainder of the text could then
be used later in an advanced course. Because of the greater
coverage and somewhat higher level of Inorganic Chemistry,
this approach would be more challenging for students than
using PDIC in the introductory course but would have the
advantage of requiring the purchase of only one text.
Inorganic Chemistry is well written and generally easy to
follow. I found very few errors and most are minor and eas-
ily detectable. A significant strength is the frequent use of
figures and graphs to examine data, revealing correlations that
will enable students to make reasonable predictions or to ex-
plain phenomena. Another attractive feature is the extent to
which the author relates inorganic chemistry to other areas.
Indeed, this is an underlying theme with all but three of the
chapters having subtitles relating to specific areas, for example
“Trends in Coordination Equilibria—With Applications to
Biochemistry, Environmental Chemistry, Geochemistry, and
Medicinal Chemistry”. This feature will undoubtedly
heighten the interest of many students but the result is a text
that is longer, larger, and heavier than those with which it is
intended to compete.
In addition to worked examples within chapters, there
are numerous exercises (typically 50–80) at the end of each,
which range from straightforward to thought provoking.
Answers to about one-fourth of these exercises are provided.
A statement of study objectives also appears at the end of
each chapter. About 40 references per chapter take students
to the original literature or other sources. There are numerous
tables of data throughout and inside the front and back covers.
There are two appendixes, one of character tables and the
other with seven discovery-based experiments. All but one
of the experiments are from PDIC and are designed to be
done before engaging the material in some of the chapters in
Part I. The index of 10 pages is reasonably detailed and useful
but a formula index would be a valuable addition.
Inorganic Chemistry is an interesting new option for teach-
ers of advanced inorganic courses and offers the possibility of
serving an introductory course as well. Since PDIC first ap-
peared, more authors have adopted the approach of develop-
ing descriptive inorganic chemistry around common principles
instead of a group-by-group treatment, which makes this text
less of a departure from the traditional than PDIC was. Still,
Wulfsberg offers an original and engaging perspective on in-
organic chemistry. Even if this text is not adopted for a course,
it deserves a place on the shelf of every teacher of inorganic
chemistry, where it will be a valuable resource.
Martin Ackermann teaches chemistry at Oberlin College,
Oberlin, OH 44074; martin.ackermann@oberlin.edu.