Title: An Inexpert Review
Product review: As someone who loves popular science and history, but who is neither a scientist nor a historian (I'm an illustrator), I found this journey, culminating in Mendeleyev's insight, to be one of the most engrossing and eye-opening books I've read in quite some time.Reading the other reviews above reinforces my belief that the more one knows about a subject the harsher (and more fussy) the criticism. Though some of the negative comments may be deserved, I nevertheless recommend this as an imminently readable history of the personalities who sought to uncover the secrets of the elements. I'm convinced that if science education were supplemented with the kind of engaging narrative backstory contained in Strathern's book, non-science-minded students would take a much greater interest in learning molar masses and balancing chemical equations.
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