Das erfolgreiche Arbeiten mit organischen Reaktionen erfordert Wissen über Reaktivität, Reaktionsmechanismen, Thermodynamik und weitere Grundlagen der physikalisch-organischen Chemie. Das Lehrbuch vermittelt dieses Wissen. Auch erhältlich: das Arbeitsbuch zum Lehrbuch.

Pierre Vogel is Professor of organic chemistry at the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. He has published three books and has co-authored more than 490 publications in the fields of physical organic chemistry, organic and organometallic synthesis, total asymmetric synthesis of natural products of biological interest, catalysis, glycochemistry and bio-organic chemistry.

Kendall N. Houk is Saul Winstein Professor at the UCLA. He is an authority on theoretical and computational organic chemistry. His group develops rules to understand reactivity, computationally models complex organic reactions, and experimentally tests the predictions of theory. He collaborates prodigiously with chemists all over the world. He has published nearly 1100 articles in refereed journals and is among the 100 most-cited chemists.