[.ca] The Periodic Kingdom: A Journey Into The Land Of The ... (ISBN 0465072666)

From Amazon.com:
The periodic table of the elements is the grand, unified theory of chemistry. In The Periodic Kingdom, P. W. Atkins imagines the table as a landscape, with fields of metals, pools of mercury and bromine, clouds of gases, and the offshore island of rare earths. He describes the history of this metaphoric kingdom and shows how its laws are those of physical chemistry: they are the expression in the visible world of the invisible dance of subatomic particles. The Periodic Kingdom is an excellent book for students at any level who want to see the connections between chemistry, physics, and "real life."

Periodic Kingdom by Atkins:
This work covers the fine nuances of the Periodic Table of elements from the East or p-block to the West s-block. It describes how classic metals evolved. For instance, the use of Cu. came out of the Stone Age. Iron, cobalt, manganese and other metals were utilized to shape steel. Dolomite is found in Italy and titanium in the West Desert. This book would be very helpful in understanding how the various metals and non-metals evolved. In addition, the permanent position on the Table of Elements is explained.

Over-simplified and underinteresting:
Who thought this book would be a good overview of chemistry. I doubt they're still in the business

Novel Investigation of the Periodic Table:
Through an ingenious geography analogy, P. W. Atkins offers an entertaining and insightful exploration of the periodic table. We initially observe the periodic kingdom from a great height and see the expansive metallic Western desert bounded by the Western Rectangle - a region occupied by the Alkali Metals and the Alkali Earth Metals - and the Eastern Rectangle - the realm of Carbon, Nitrogen, and Oxygen, the excitable Halogens, the Noble Gases, and other non-metallic elements (countries). To the south lies the distant, seldom visited Southern Island of the Lanthanides and Actinides. Atkins divided his book, "The Periodic Kingdom", into three sections: Geography (chapters 1-3), History (chapters 4-7), and Government and Institutions (chapters 8-11). The three Geography chapters include the terrain, the products of each region, and physical geography. Physical geography is more challenging with maps of atomic masses, atomic diameters, elemental densities, and ionization energies. But don't stop. Atkins is only illustrating that the periodic kingdom is characterized by gradual changes, not by random fluctuations at country (element) borders. In succeeding chapters we discover that these changes exhibit a periodic pattern. The four History chapters - the discovery of the periodic kingdom, the naming of the countries, the "geologic" history of this land, and the major cartographers - are fascinating and easy going for the non-chemist. The final chapters on Government and Institutions offer a non-mathematical look at quantum physics that governs both the nucleus (Laws of the Interior) and the electron cloud (Laws of the Exterior). Despite the inherent difficulty of atomic physics, this section is quite readable and will not intimidate most readers. Some reviewers roundly criticized Atkins for overworking his kingdom analogy and argued that he should have transitioned earlier to standard chemistry nomenclature. I mildly agree with these sentiments, but I suspect that Atkins' primary audience, the literate layman looking for a comprehensible overview of chemistry, will find his kingdom analogy to be both entertaining and helpful. P. W. Atkins has authored widely used textbooks on general chemistry and organic chemistry as well as more advanced texts on physical chemistry. For the reader enticed to explore chemistry further, I suggest reading Chapter 7, titled Atomic Structure and the Periodic Table, in Atkins' text "General Chemistry", second edition, which can be purchased used on Amazon at a greatly reduced price. For all readers I highly recommend Primo Levi's "The Periodic Table", an intriguing memoir of a young Italian chemist, a Jew living in Mussolini's Italy. He titled each chapter with the name of an element that played some role in that particular chapter. Look at the reader reviews. "The Periodic Table" is an exceptional literary work.

Good idea gone too far:
For me, the analogies dominated over the chemistry I'm trying to learn, and after a while, I grew bored with visions of mountains, valleys, plateaus, shores, and seas. Yes, some patterns and relationships of the elements emerged, but this approach was not more appealing than the more straightforward approach of a good chemistry text.

A superb book:
Analogy and explanation are Dr. Atkin's watchwords. Everybody will learn something from this book, no matter what level they are at. I have never seen a more entertaining description of the periodic table in a popular science book. Difficulties are turned to enlightenment. More please!