Napoleon's Buttons

I went a little overboard when the Borders in Center City closed last March, buying anything that looked interesting. I seem to have made mistake with Napoleon's Buttons - I thought it would be a bit like James Burke's Connections, but it's more of a Connections-light. Maybe with my chemistry background I'm not part of the intended audience, but I found it a bit condescending in places, and a few questionable facts make me suspect the rest of the presented historical connections. The specifics of the experiments leading to the discovery of vitamin C deficiency as the cause of scurvy and some of the background on the origins of olive oil were interesting, but I think I might have enjoyed this book more if I knew less about the covered topics. Or maybe not - the authors' tone isn't particularly inviting.