These models and their extensive, sumptuous curves will keep students and professors captivated. They are very helpful in visualizing the many different conformations of organic compounds, and help students understand isomerism on a personal level.

This solutions manual is among the most clearly written and enjoyable I've ever used. Crisp simplified formatting makes even the complicated solution approaches pleasant to read with a minimum of excess steps and all the appropriate diagrams and drawings as needed. Just simply a perfect solutions manual to compliment the equally enjoyable text.

How many chemistry textbooks begin with the beginning "You need insight to think like a chemist."? What is the definition of "insight?" So if I don't have their kind of "insight", I can't do chemistry? This book is slightly useful for teaching reactions, but does not particularly go out of the way to explain the fundamentals (quantum mechanics) required to understand these concepts. If you're looking for a general chem textbook, there are much much better choices than this waste of paper.

I'll write a follow up review after I use Chemical Principles--The Quest for Insight for the school year. I attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and I plan to major in chemical engineering.

Hello! I am Italian so sorry about any mistakes. (If you have comments, write to Giovani_Bassi@Hotmail.com) This is yet another General Chem. clone. Linus Pauling and the Swedish Gunnar Haegg (=Hägg) once started this tradition of elementary chemistry pedagogy with writing two magically good and inspired books, but since then nothing has happened, except for the dawn of lengthy prefaces, lists of reviewers, increase in format, thickness and the many hundreds of colour pictures and endless pedagogical aids (many on CD or in supplementary volumes) that just have to explain the simplest things over, over, over, over and over again with the aid of distracting colour diagrams and flow-charts, reducing the concentration of facts vastly, as well as logical continuity and coherence. General Chem. is today an extremely elementary course that probably does as much good as bad to people. It explains not in one case the physical basis of the discussed phenomena or from where the crude formulas used have come, which destroys one's sensitivity and criticism - and often interest. (As it did for myself, who already after one year of chemistry courses had learned to hate the subject and its ever-practically-minded view on the world. Only after three years of physics could I return to chemistry again, but at that time I was equipped with the tools needed to put the chemical situations into a broader perspective and felt independent of other's explanations. This is a possible path to follow, you know, you really interested students!) This is really very unsatisfactory and it would at least be less confusing for the more curious student, if someone could just put down, honestly, all the facts (that it has been agreed that one must learn in the course), say what simplifications that had been made in these, and show briefly how the ten or so central formulae can be employed. Then the students would know why they get stuck all the time, when they try to "see what is going on at the molecular level" - they do not have all the needed pieces, simply, which the G-chem. books so boldly dare to suggest in their simplifications - and not waste a minute more time than required by their colleges on various doubts over the funny presentation! Chemistry is the disicpline concerned with change, and the description of change tends to involve differential equations, derivatives, integrals etc. - none of which we see in G-Chem and therefore the subject cannot allow one to "gain eyes to see with". All the dozens of books with this same title have similiarly named and ordered chapters, an identical lay-out, give the same analogies, the same cute comments, discuss the same'ol classic compounds (when millions of fantastic compounds are available that are far more interesting than graphite...) and provide the same problems and the same solutions to them. I seriously recommend studying Atkins's little "Elements of Physical Chemistry" (Oxford) parallel, for all those who are taking General Chemistry. (Advanced students will purchase the "Physical Chemistry" proper, too.) It contains about the same information and is no more deep (no more advanced maths either, except for the occasional high-school integral), but ties all facts together in a coherent way - which mostly has been possible due to the avoidance of cluttering the pages up with useless pictures and review boxes. Learn all in this thin little book and you can feel that you have really done the best of the situation with your first chemistry course and are well-prepared for the coming ones. Atkins's "The Second Law" is also very useful and brilliant. The most advanced problems are found in Petrucci-Harwood "Gen. Chem." from Prentice-Hall, a rather good G-Chem clone. The simplest book is Umland-Bellama's "Gen.Chem." from West Publishing. ALL suffer from the perverted idea of diluting ten formulas into 1200, or so, pages, however. (Pauling and Haegg/Hägg remain the very best, as said before.) It is somewhat disappointing that the truly great scientist Atkins agrees to put his signature on a book that is so incoherent. Atkins is very intelligent, creative and inspiring as a writer and lecturer, but in his textbooks (except for those recommended here, "MQM" and "Quanta") he just happily follows the standard, affixed college concept and walks in the leash of his publishers' demands, leaving no possibility for a reader to even guess that Atkins is the author.

I am in sweden - in a local university liberary - They had just bought in the book - And I am sitting here chocked about it. This is exacly what I wanted - exacly I realy can't say anything more than I have struggled for years with this subject - and now finaly I can see that the clowds disapears Its a real pleashure to have this book in my palms - And I beleave that the time will stand still for a while - VERY GOOD WORK!

I am an instructor who has learned to be skeptical of general chemistry textbooks, so this book was a pleasant surprise. Jones and Atkins have a terrific art program, but more than that, the art is creatively designed and tied to the text. The result in my experience is deeper student understanding. The problem-solving support is extensive. It has to be seen---and used---to be appreciated.

This is by far the best general chemistry textbook I have ever seen if you are interested in students really learning concepts. Instead of glossing over the concepts, the authors introduce a rationale for learning a topic, help students to visualize it, then show how concepts are connected to problem-solving in the toolboxes. Finally, the worked examples have explicit strategies for every problem, which helps students to understand what they are doing when working the problem. They can then test themselves on the self-tests.

The book has a large number of interesting case studies that some students really like, especially if they are majoring in another subject. My students also liked the summaries at the ends of the sections and the checklist at the ends of the chapters.

I must agree with the previous 2 reader. Not a good book. It did cover the basic, but did not go far enough to help you to pass your exam. (I did get A by using other references.) Ex: 4 lines to describe how to do redox reaction. Poorly describe how to draw molecular structure.

THis text book contains a substancial amount of information and is presented in a straight foward manner, but some of the information is not correct. Chloric acid is NOT soluble!

I may be mistaken but i do not think there is such a thing as chloric acid....