This book for advanced undergraduates covers areas of mechanistic and physical organic chemistry in a non-mathematical way. The topics included are essential in any modern chemistry degree, yet are not included in standard organic chemistry textbooks for undergraduates. The book starts with a consideration of molecular vibrations and intermolecular interactions, and introduces the use of potential energy profiles and reaction maps to describe organic chemical transformations. The relationship between kinetics and organic reaction mechanisms is then explored with special emphasis on the...

This concise, authoritative, and up-to-date overview begins with a chapter in which modern terminology, definitions, and concepts of mechanisms and reactivity are introduced. The following chapters provide accounts of the mechanisms of four of the main classes of reactions of aliphatic compounds. Rather than simply presenting the mechanisms to the reader, these chapters begin with experimental evidence and then demonstrate how this leads to the mechanistic deductions. Problems at the end of each chapter and a short bibliography further enhance this volume.