Lawrence Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, The University of Chicago Press, 2012.

Erudite nonsense.

The author through collecting specious evidence, suggests that alchemy was as rational as a premodern science. This is nonsense. While premodern scientists were mystically inclined etc., they published their manuscripts for everybody to learn and maintained active correspondence, frequently international, with their colleagues. The majority of alchemists supplied their mystico-philosophical treatises with chemical magic/experiments but they were supplied essentially as "proofs" that the author had some secret knowledge. Chemical side of alchemy did not evolve throughout many centuries and it remained a cultural phenomenon totally separate from the emergence of modern science. This is not to say that some serious scientists (Newton, Boyle) were also alchemists.