Book Reading Update - 5th Book: The Fontana History of Chemistry

I decided to discontinue reading Periodic Tales for now as I found myself constantly itching for more historical information to tie the discoveries and inventions of chemistry.

I decided to pick up another history of chemistry book, this time written in a more standard way.  The account is still quite condensed (despite its length of 700 or so pages!) but the continuity is more acceptable in terms of the central ideas and events and core historical context being treated, at least in the first chapter.  The length is quite intimidating so I will take it one chapter at a time.

I have finished reading (and taking notes) the first chapter dealing with the origins and demise of alchemy.  The author makes a point that while present chemistry knowledge and practice extracted a lot of its original ideas, equipment, and processes from alchemistry, it is not clear and arguable that alchemy led to chemistry.