The development of general, efficient synthetic methods for versatile organic compounds from readily available reagents is one of the challenges in organic synthesis. N-Substituted cyclic imides have found numerous applications in biology, 1–6 pharmacology, 7 synthetic chemistry, 8–19 polymer chemistry, 20, 21 and material science. 22, 23 Several herbicides, 24 pesticides, 24 and antifungal1 agents and a host of bioactive natural products have ...