Textbook inflation: thirty-five years of Brown’s general chemistry textbook

Abstract

Today’s general chemistry textbooks have grown to considerable size and cost, with a dazzling array of photos, illustrations, tables, insets and worked problems that compete for attention with the actual text. This letter examines the evolution of one particular textbook – Brown, LeMay, Bursten, and Burdge’s ‘Chemistry: the central science’ – and raises some questions about the current state of the general chemistry textbook. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2006, 7 (1), 46-48]