New textbooks at all levels of chemistry appear with great regularity.
Some fields such as basic biochemistry, organic re action mechanisms,
and chemical thermodynamics are weil represented by many excellent
texts, and new or revised editions are published sufficiently often to
keep up with progress in research. However, some areas of chemistry,
especially many of those taught at the graduate level, suffer from a
real lack of up-to-date textbooks. The most serious needs occur in
fields that are rapidly changing. Textbooks in these subjects usually
have to be written by scientists actually involved in the research that
is advancing the field. It is not often easy to persuade such
individuals to set time aside to help spread the knowledge they have
accumulated. Our goal, in this series, is to pinpoint areas of chemistry
where recent progress has outpaced what is covered in any available
textbooks, and then seek out and persuade experts in these fields to
produce relatively concise but instruc- tive introductions to their
fields. These should serve the needs of one semester or one quarter
graduate courses in chemistry and biochemistry. In so me cases the
availability of texts in active research areas should help stimulate the
creation of new courses.