Principles of Modern Chemistry,   ISBN:9780534493660

Customer Rating: 

Text arrived covered in dirt with a dented damaged binding - interior seemed fine. Clearly it was poorly stored and no one took the time to clean it off before shipping. But it did arrive in time for class.

Customer Rating: 

This textbook is supposed to be an introductory textbook. However, from the explanations in the textbook, it seems to be written for students who have already had taken general chemistry. The examples are not helpful for solving the problems and the explanations are very wordy and can even be convoluted at times. The ordering of the material is also very confusing and not helpful for most chemistry students. The only good things is that it has lots of problems and they are useful for learning the material.

Customer Rating: 

While not an absolutely terrible text, Oxtoby certainly was not a great one. This book was used throughout my Physical Chemistry course. I found that the book was quite lacking in conceptual explanations for quantum, at some points using math to explain rather than words. While in an Honors Section in which the focus was to create text, examples, and problems for a textbook on Quantum, this book was useless and internet sources and journal articles were required to provide more conceptual explanations.
I found the chapters on Acid/Base and Titrations to be much more convoluted than they should or ought to have been.
For a wonderful, short, review of Quantum material I would suggest checking out Inorganic Chemistry by Miessler from your library and reading the 2nd Chapter. Having just read it for quick review for one of my classes I found it succinct and feel it would have been a nice summary and general overview before reading the quantum (esp Schrodinger and Particle in a Box) sections in Oxtoby.

Customer Rating: 

This book is not as approachable as many general chemistry books; as a previous reviewer has noted, this book is written by physical chemists and the organization and presentation of the concepts in the text reflects this. As a physical chemist, I generally like this text; however, I acknowledge that it's not for everyone and I do have a few critiques.

Students who are not mathematically-inclined will have a hard time with this text: the thermodynamics section, the derivation of the kinetic theory of gases, and some of the derivations of the quantum mechanics material are intimidating! However, students with a firm grounding in math and physics will get much more out of this text than they will out of other standard general chemistry texts like Brown and LeMay (Chemistry The Central Science Tenth Edition).

I would strongly recommend this book for students who have an interest in math and physics or who have already taken an introductory chemistry course and want to understand the phenomena described at a more detailed level. For AP Chemistry or for students who haven't taken intro physics or intro calculus, I would instead recommend the Brown and LeMay book. I feel that its coverage of some of the topics is a bit more superficial, but it is more approachable for students taking chemistry for the first time.

One last note: I dislike the newest edition of this book because they authors reorganized the chapters into a "quantum first" presentation (quantum mechanics is introduced in chapter 4 rather than chapter 15 as it was in the 5th edition). While this organization is suitable for some full-out physical chemistry courses, it is not appropriate for this book. If this book is to be used as a general chemistry book, consider doing the chapters out of order: start with the history of chemistry chapters, skip to the thermo stuff, and come back to quantum later. It's much easier to grasp intuitively if you work from the macro to the micro and not the other way around.

Customer Rating: 

The product was received in excellent condition, exactly as described. I requested and payed for expedited shipping but received it via standard shipping.