Vogel’s Textbook of Practical Organic Chemistry (5th Edition)

Book Preface

This is the second time that we have prepared a new edition of Vogel’s Textbook of Organic Chemistry and it is important to reaffirm the aims set out by the late Dr A. I. Vogel in the preface to the first edition. Thus in this new edition every endeavour is made to retain the comprehensive character of the book, and to ensure that it continues to be a one-volume reference text which is of value to practising organic chemists throughout their undergraduate, postgraduate and subsequent careers.

During the preparation of the previous (fourth) edition considerable reorganisation and rewriting oi the text was necessary. This arose from the many changes which had taken place in the practice and theory of organic chemistry during the preceding twenty years. Among these changes were the ready availability of a much wider range of substrates and reagents; the development of a whole host of new synthetic reagents; a greater awareness of the hazards associated with handling of organic chemicals; the routine use of chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques; and the use of mechanistic concepts to rationalise and predict the outcome of organic reactions. That revision included a modified chapter on experimental techniques, which was arranged under the headings ‘Apparatus and reaction procedures’, ‘Isolation and purification processes’, and ‘Determination of physical constants’. New sections were introduced on safe working in organic laboratories, chromatography, and spectroscopic methods. The interpretation of spectroscopic data was discussed in the reorganised chapter entitled Qualitative Organic Analysis. The preparative chapters were reorganised on the basis of aliphatic compounds, aromatic compounds, alicyclic compounds, and heterocyclic compounds, and within these chapters a selection of new synthetic methods was introduced. Following the practice adopted in previous editions these new preparations were checked in the laboratories of the School of Chemistry, Thames Polytechnic.

In this new (fifth) edition, in order to ensure that the book retains its relevance to current teaching of organic chemistry, we have adopted the same structure of the book since we are of the opinion that it provides a bridge between the treatment of organic chemistry theory provided by current standard undergraduate textbooks, and the wider specialist fields of the research literature. Furthermore, in addition to the introduction of new reagents and techniques, the last decade has seen the development of a philosophy of organic synthesis (the strategy of synthesis) which was just beginning to emerge during the writing of the previous edition. It is our intention to reflect this development, since we consider that the teaching of organic chemistry must closely integrate mechanistic theory with the strategy and methodology of synthesis.