The Periodic Kingdom: A Journey Into The Land Of The Chemical Elements

An introductory journey through the Periodic Table explains how every tangible object is comprised of the various elements while chronicling the history of element discovery and explaining how elemental knowledge can be applied.

Amazon.com Review: 

The periodic table of the elements is the grand, unified theory of chemistry. In The Periodic Kingdom, P. W. Atkins imagines the table as a landscape, with fields of metals, pools of mercury and bromine, clouds of gases, and the offshore island of rare earths. He describes the history of this metaphoric kingdom and shows how its laws are those of physical chemistry: they are the expression in the visible world of the invisible dance of subatomic particles. The Periodic Kingdom is an excellent book for students at any level who want to see the connections between chemistry, physics, and "real life."