This book was conceived in response to the disquiet which many chemists have expressed concerning the direction taken by courses and textbooks of inorganic chemistry in the last 20–30 years. The traditional inorganic text was divided into two parts. The book began with an outline of the underlying theory: atomic structure, bonding theory, structural chemistry and relevant aspects of thermodynamics etc. The bulk of the traditional text was taken up by descriptive inorganic chemistry: a systematic survey of the chemistry of the elements, according to the Periodic classification. Here the reader was supposed to acquire a sound factual knowledge of inorganic substances — what compounds have been prepared, how they are prepared, their structures, chemical reactions and physical properties. The purpose of the theoretical part was mainly to make the study of descriptive inorganic chemistry more palatable and intellectually-satisfying; it provided a framework around which substances and properties can be classified, and which enabled the reader to ‘understand’ and ‘explain’ experimentally-observed facts, perhaps even to ‘predict’ facts which were not explicitly set out.

Over the years, the theoretical part tended to grow at the expense of the descriptive material. This reflects the increasingly diverse preoccupations of inorganic chemists. Since the 1950s, they have invaded territory which was formerly within the domain of the physical chemists, e.g. structural chemistry, spectroscopy, magnetochemistry, quantum chemistry and reaction mechanisms.