BasicBooks' Science Master Series consists of short, easy-to-read, attractive, and inexpensive books that present state-of-the-art ideas from a range of disciplines from astrophysics to zoology in a format designed to enable a broad audience of general nonmathematical readers to attain scientific literacy. The series will include as authors such masters of science popularization as Peter Atkins, Richard Dawkins, Murray Gell-Mann, Stephen Jay Gould, and Lynn Margulis.

In the sixth and latest volume in the series P. W. Atkins, lecturer in physical chemistry at Oxford University and the author of more than 20 books, including the highly popular Molecules and the textbook Physical Chemistry, introduces the periodic table in a unique and ingenious manner. He lightly maintains that "An awareness of the periodic table is essential to anyone who wishes to disentangle the world and see how it is built up from the fundamental building blocks of chemistry, the chemical elements. Anyone who seeks to be familiar with a scientists'-eye view of the world must be aware of the general form of the periodic table, for it is part of scientific culture." Assuming that his readers have no prior knowledge of chemistry and acting as an articulate and entertaining tour guide, Atkins asks that we suppose that the periodic table, the central feature, both in principle and in practice, of chemistry and of the nature of matter as well, is an actual landscape²the Periodic Kingdom of the book's title. He presents the periodic table as a travel guide to an imaginary country of which the elements are the various regions. His Baedeker of chemistry effectively demonstrates that "the chemical elements are not a random clutter of entities but instead display trends and lie together in families."

Atkins organizes his imaginative and fascinating journey into three parts. In Part I, Geography (Chaps. 1-3; 42 pp), he explores both familiar and exotic regions, examining their properties, uses, and economic and social significance. The metals are located in the west, and by traveling eastward through the "Western Desert" (home of the transition elements) and then through a varied landscape of nonmetals, he leads us to the noble gases at the eastern shoreline. The lanthanides and actinides are found in the "Southern Island". In Part 2, History (Chaps. 4-7; 51 pp), he examines the discovery of the elements and their discoverers, their nomenclature (including the recent IUPAC squabble over transactinide elements), their origin (nucleosynthesis), and "the cartographers" (Mendeleev and his predecessors). In Part 3, Government and Institutions (Chaps. 8-11; 46 pp), he discusses nuclear structure, quantum mechanics, orbitals and the Aufbauprinzip, periodic trends, the chemical industry, compounds, and ionic and covalent bonds. With vivid imagery, apt analogies, and liberal doses of humor, he succeeds in admirably demonstrating how knowing the location of an element on the table enables one to predict certain properties of that element.

Although written in simple prose, Atkins' book is, nevertheless, poetic and lyrical, strongly evoking vivid metaphors, similes, images, and feelings, much as the late Primo Levi did in The Periodic Table (Schocken: New York, 1984). This slim volume is an unusual blend of science, technology, history, anecdotes, culture, and economics that, despite its brevity, touches upon virtually every topic traditionally included in a general chemistry or inorganic chemistry course. Technical terms are highlighted in italics. A successful attempt to bridge C. P. Snow's gap between the two cultures of science and the humanities, it will make an ideal gift for a potential young scientist or nonscientist acquaintance interested in chemistry. Although aimed at a general audience, it also will provide seasoned instructors with a new and refreshing view of a basic concept of chemistry with which they are already familiar and perhaps a bit jaded.