The development of mechanistic organic chemistry is filled with claims of short-lived reactive intermediates connecting starting material to product. In many ways this book represents a personal odyssey of the editor in this area of chemistry. I well remember my introduction to organic chemistry as an undergraduate working in the laboratories of Shelton Bank at SUNY Albany in the early 1970s, and the excitement and frustration attending the piecing together of the details of a reaction mechanism by working backwards from the stable products of the reaction. In those days the reaction and the...

The development of mechanistic organic chemistry is filled with claims of short-lived reactive intermediates connecting starting material to product. In many ways this book represents a personal odyssey of the editor in this area of chemistry. I well remember my introduction to organic chemistry as an undergraduate working in the laboratories of Shelton Bank at SUNY Albany in the early 1970s, and the excitement and frustration attending the piecing together of the details of a reaction mechanism by working backwards from the stable products of the reaction. In those days the reaction and the...