Caveman Chemistry: 28 Projects, from the Creation of Fire to the Production of Plastics

This book does include 28 projects- there’s also a lot of story telling referring to biblical stuff but from the personified perspective of earth/wind/fire/air - I found this a little over the top and off putting to the point where I really don’t want to *read* the book and would prefer to just skim to the parts I’m interested in. I’m sure others will appreciate it.I liked the idea of wholistic connection where each thing builds upon itself. It sortof does that.Some of the projects expect at lot of extra equipment investment (furnaces or stills or other things) or extra knowledge not covered in this book but mentioned as needing an understanding of. I’d expect this would be an engaging way to have a well stocked class for students in highschool or college if we ignore some of the issues I’ll list below.1. For the size of the book we could replace all the obnoxious prose like random pages from mid summer nights dream or hammurabi’s code, childhood anecdotes, unnecessary “you must know alchemical symbol for the four Aristotelian elements or explaining the nature of the authors concept of “I-deas” with actual useful information - most of the you must master the following to do this are not valid you just need to have the equipment and follow the instructions…. projects should be based on using more rudimentary materials.Example chapter 1 🔼 charcoalThe purpose of this chapter is to talk about what’s happening with charcoal and how to make it with fire. Then we are show “a fire kit” using machine cut parts, nylon chord, screws, Peggy, dowels, copper plumbing supplies.. surely anyone in scouts learned an easier method with less parts, less machined parts etc. This seems well beyond over the top unnecessary on so many levels.2: In chapter 2 there’s a quote “now maybe you think they were too dumb to use wheels… Indians today are even smart enough to be doctors and lawyers”. I’d be being generous If I said this quote was “of its time” (2003) it goes on to basically thank white people for “wheelifying” the world. 🤮We then need an antler tine- with no description of what that is or a welding rod tip.3. Professional niggle as it’s my field: The photography component was unnecessarily advanced for intro to historic process chemistry. Between the history of photography and the basics of chemistry there was simply no need to include albumen - salt would have been far more to the point with basics of including the fixer.I’ve given 3 stars because it has 28 projects and there is some explanation of chemistry spanning elements and that is interesting. I’d rank it higher if it weren’t so egoistic in its writing, scattered irrelevance and that particularly offensive paragraph.I’m sure someone will call me woke or a snowflake in reply. 🤷‍♀️ It’s just unnecessary

I understand that it comes from an education context, but incredibly verbose. Could be half the length, and still convey the information I bought it for.On the other hand, I'm pretty excited to be able to do my own flint knapping!

I bought this book from a recommendation, and now having had a flick through, am glad to recommend it to you. I bought it as a gift, but will be digging through it myself when i can prize it from his grasp...

As described, quick delivery

This book works so well on any number of levels:Read it as a general text if you want to understand the history and science of anything from metals to alcohol to explosives.Use it as a practical guide for making from scratch, anything from acid to plastic.Or just use it as a very readable chemistry textbook.Kevin Dunn has a great sense of humour and a refreshing degree of common-sense in describing projects where the unwary and stupid could harm themselves!I've shown this book to many people, and they've all ended up buying their own copies, because the quality of the writing and breadth of topics covered make this book unique.The book is especially suitable for anyone yearning to get their hands dirty and actually make things, and would be a useful text to draw on for home educating someone in science and wanting to make the subject less dry than many other textbooks.