Name reactions: a collection of detailed reaction mechanisms

Confucius said: "Reviewing old knowledge while learning new old knowledge, is that not, after all, a pleasure?"Indeed, name reactions are not only the fruit of pioneering organic chemists, but also our contemporaries whose combined discoveries have resulted in organic chemistry today.Since publication of this book, Barry Sharpless and Ryoji Noyori, whose name reactions have been included since the first edition, went on to win the Nobel Prizes in 2001.Recently, Richard Schrock, Robert Grubbs, and Yves Chauvin shared the 2005 Nobel Prize in chemistry for their contributions to metathesis, a name reaction that has been also included since the first edition.Therefore, I intend to keep up with the new developments in the field of organic chemistry while retaining the collection of name reactions that have withheld test of time.The third edition contains major improvements over the previous two editions.I have updated references.Each reaction is now supplemented with two to three representative examples in synthesis to showcase its synthetic utility.As Emil Fischer stated: "Science is not an abstraction; but as a product of human endeavor it is inseparably bound up in its development with the personalities and fortunes of those who dedicate themselves to it."To that end, I added biographical sketches for most of the chemists who discovered or developed those name reactions.Furthemore, I have significantly beefed up the subject index to help the reader navigate the book more easily.