TABLE OF CONTENTS No comprehensive history of inorganic chemistry has been written during the period since the publication in 1985 of Recent Developments in the History of Chemistry, [1] though two general histories of chemistry have presented useful overviews. [2] , [3] The subject has not been treated systematically in serial literature; instead, some half dozen topics have been worked exhaustively, usually under the impetus of a significant anniversary. For the rest, the coverage has been patchy and of uneven significance to the historian of chemistry, although one paper traces the history of inorganic chemistry from the 1870s to the 1970s. [4]
[1]C. A. Russell, General and inorganic chemistry, in Recent Developments in the History of Chemistry, ed. C. A. Russell, Royal Society of Chemistry, 1985, pp. 77 96.
[2]W. H. Brock, Fontana History of Chemistry, Fontana Press, London, 1992, ch. 9, p.311; ch. 15, p.570.
[3]J. Hudson, A History of Chemistry, Macmillan, London 1992, ch. 12, 187.
[4]J. A Zubieta and J. J. Zuckermann, Chem. Eng. News, 1978, 54, 64 79.
Although the title inorganic chemistry did not appear in print until the 1830s, the roots of the discipline are more than four hundred years old and have been discussed in Chapter 2. In the early years of the 19th century, two influences combined to focus attention on atomic weights. One was the atomic theory of...
