本书作者以传记方式分16章叙述了从古埃及时期到20世纪30年代化学发展的基本历程。本书内容丰富，取材翔实，从古老的炼金术到19世纪的化合价理论，再到20世界的周期律及原子结构，均有所涵盖。本书脉络清晰，观点客观、公正，目的在于为化学史提供一个简明而的综述，以利于读者对化学史产生整体的印象。

Let'egin by discussing what the discipline of theoretical chemistry is about. I think most young students of chemistry think that theory deals with using puters to model or simulate molecular behaviors. This is only partly true. Theory indeed contains under itroad umbrella the field of putational simulations,and it is such applications of theory that have gained much recent attention especially as powerful puters and user-friendly software packages have bee widely available. However, this discipline also involves analytical theory, which deals with how the fundamental equations used to perform the simulations are derived from the Schrrdinger equation or from classical mechanics, among other things. The discipline also has to do with obtaining the equations that relate laboratory data (e.g., spectra, heat capacities, reaction cross-sections) to molecular properties(e.g., geometries, bond energies, activation energies). This analytical side ofthe0ry is also where the equations of statistical mechanics that