Advanced Organic Chemistry Part B: Reactions and Synthesis (5th Edition)
By Francis A. Carey & Richard J. Sundberg • Springer, 2007
Where Part A of Carey and Sundberg explains why molecules behave the way they do, Part B answers a different question entirely: how do you actually build them? Reactions and Synthesis is the practical half of the famous two-volume set, and for many working chemists it remains the single most consulted book on their shelf. Springer published this fifth edition in 2007, and it still reads as current, which tells you something about how well the authors chose their material. Thirteen chapters and well over a thousand pages of reagent-level detail sit inside, all of it aimed at one goal: turning a student who knows reactions into a chemist who can plan them.
Book at a Glance
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Book Name | Advanced Organic Chemistry, Part B: Reactions and Synthesis |
| Authors | Francis A. Carey & Richard J. Sundberg |
| Edition | 5th Edition |
| Publisher | Springer Science+Business Media, LLC |
| Year | 2007 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-387-68350-8 (hardcover) / 978-0-387-68354-6 (softcover) |
| Chapters | 13 |
| Language | English |
| File Format |
Why Chemists Rate This Volume So Highly
The scope is genuinely wide. Thirteen chapters carry you from enolate alkylation and carbon nucleophile chemistry all the way through functional group interconversion, reductions, oxidations, and the organometallic reagents that modern synthesis leans on. Group I and II organometallics get their own chapter, and so do transition metal mediated reactions — coverage many older texts simply never had.
What sets the book apart is synthesis as a way of thinking. Chapters don't just list reactions; they compare them, show which reagent wins under which condition, and explain the side reactions that ruin yields in a real flask. The closing chapter on multistep syntheses is the part students remember longest. It walks through complete synthetic sequences, exposing the planning logic behind every disconnection, and there is no better training ground for retrosynthesis questions in CSIR-NET or university exams.
Shaded Topic sections dig into applied material — protecting group strategies, stereoselective reductions, named rearrangements — while every chapter ends with general references and problems. The problems are the thoughtful kind: they make you reason, not recall. Tables of reagents and conditions appear throughout, which is exactly the format a revision-minded student wants in the final weeks before an exam.
Lab researchers get just as much out of it. When a reaction refuses to cooperate, the comparative tables usually reveal the alternative reagent worth trying, along with the conditions that give it the best chance. Few textbooks earn permanent desk space; this one has, for decades.
Be realistic about the pace, though. The text presumes comfort with mechanism at the level of Part A, so if your grounding in enolate chemistry or reaction fundamentals is shaky, expect some slow going in the first few chapters.
Complete Chapter Index
| Chapter | Title | Starts At |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alkylation of Enolates and Other Carbon Nucleophiles | p. 1 |
| 2 | Reactions of Carbon Nucleophiles with Carbonyl Compounds | p. 63 |
| 3 | Functional Group Interconversion by Substitution, Including Protection and Deprotection | p. 215 |
| 4 | Electrophilic Additions to Carbon-Carbon Multiple Bonds | p. 289 |
| 5 | Reduction of Carbon-Carbon Multiple Bonds, Carbonyl Groups, and Other Functional Groups | p. 367 |
| 6 | Concerted Cycloadditions, Unimolecular Rearrangements, and Thermal Eliminations | p. 473 |
| 7 | Organometallic Compounds of Group I and II Metals | p. 619 |
| 8 | Reactions Involving Transition Metals | p. 675 |
| 9 | Carbon-Carbon Bond-Forming Reactions of Compounds of Boron, Silicon, and Tin | p. 783 |
| 10 | Reactions Involving Carbocations, Carbenes, and Radicals as Reactive Intermediates | p. 861 |
| 11 | Aromatic Substitution Reactions | p. 1003 |
| 12 | Oxidations | p. 1063 |
| 13 | Multistep Syntheses | p. 1163 |
Who Should Read It
This volume suits readers who already understand basic mechanisms and now want to plan syntheses of their own. M.Sc students meet exactly this material in their reaction and synthesis papers, and the comparative, condition-by-condition treatment maps neatly onto what examiners love to ask. CSIR-NET aspirants will find the carbonyl and organometallic chapters worth multiple readings, since questions drawn from them appear year after year. For GATE, the problem sets double as quick self-tests on reagent choice and selectivity.
This is the Part B volume, focused on reactions and synthesis. For bonding, stereochemistry, and mechanism theory, see Part A: Structure and Mechanisms on this site.
Download the Book
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