Nanoscale Assembly: Chemical Techniques (Nanostructure Science and Technology)

Description

Amazon.com is making an abusively truncated use of my review published in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2006, 45, 4544 - 4545, which is globaly negative on this book and I request the full version of my text to be put online with my signature or to remove the review completely. For the customer's awareness, here are the FULL sentences of this review which have been truncated: "The timely topic of Nanoscale Assembly encompasses such a large and expanding body of work that W. T. S. Huck was both wise and insightful to focus the scope of his book onto Chemical techniques. Moreover, by gathering authors with contrasting backgrounds in chemistry and physical chemistry, the editor showed a genuine will to stimulate a debate about a still emerging discipline. Consequently, the enthusiastic reader will be exposed successively to microstructured polymers (Chapters 1 and 2), molecular electronics in self-assembled monolayers (Chapters 3 and 5), supramolecular assembly on solid surfaces or in solution (Chapters 4, 7, and 6), and templated crystallization of colloidal suspensions (Chapter 8). However, expectations are quickly disappointed by the vague and conventional viewpoint of the preface, the lack of a structured outline, and the ill-defined aims that have influenced the choice of contributions. This inevitably translates into loosely connected, sometimes redundant, chapters, which address the title theme with very variable success." To summarize from an epistemological viewpoint, this book is symptomatic of the difficulties the scientific community is currently experiencing in defining what nanoscience really is. Notwithstanding this existential questioning, and in spite of disparities between chapters, many of the individual contributions are good introductions to their respective fields. Furthermore, they are not intellectually challenging, and the few in-depth parts are adequately detailed. Therefore, this book could be useful for students or for general multidisciplinary reading, but it is definitely not suitable for experts in any of the fields mentioned. As I indicated earlier, it would have gained immensely from more rigorous attention by the editor and typesetters. So we shall still keep "plenty of room at the bottom" of our shelves for a future masterpiece on "Nanoscale Assembly".