From the Molecular World

Alan J. Rocke has brought back to vibrant life a fanciful little book that the nineteenth-century physical chemist and historian of chemistry Hermann Kopp privately printed in 1882 as a birthday gift for his close friend Robert Bunsen. an excellent addition to the SpringerBriefs in History of Chemistry series, edited by Seth C. Rasmussen. (Mary Jo Nye, ISIS, Vol. 106 (1), 2015)

Rocke has now provided a full translation of Kopp s book, with an extensive introduction and explanatory footnotes . Rocke s translation is a welcome reminder that we still have much to learn about chemists and chemistry in the nineteenth century, and we should be thankful that he has made Kopp s fertile imagination more accessible to non-German-speaking readers. (Peter J. Ramberg, Ambix, Vol. 60 (2), May, 2013)

In From the Molecular World, Kopp gave a survey of much of the domain of chemical interests from the atomic-molecular viewpoint. provides a very useful overview of the theoretical `state-of-the-art of chemistry in the early 1880s. In our own age of bewilderingly rapid social, economic, scientific technological change, it is comforting to read and savor Kopps molecular fantasy. (Seymour Mauskopf, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Vol. 52 (13), 2013)