Book excerpt: This book discusses the connectivity between major chemicals, showing how a chemical is made along with why and some of the business considerations. The book helps smooth a student’s transition to industry and assists current professionals who need to understand the larger picture of industrial chemistry principles and practices. The book: Addresses a wide scope of content, emphasizing the business and polymer / pharmaceutical / agricultural aspects of industrial chemistry Covers patenting, experimental design, and systematic optimization of experiments Written by an author with extensive industrial experience but who is now a university professor, making him uniquely positioned to present this material Has problems at the end of chapters and a separate solution manual available for adopting professors Puts chemical industry topics in context and ties together many of the principles chemistry majors learn across more specific courses