5 comments about A Room For The Summer: Adventure, Misadventure, And Seduction In The Mines Of The Coeur D'Alene.

1. This is a story that doesn't fit into any typical genre. Its a story about life with a personal memoir and some rich history as the back drop. The author writes in a style that is fresh and engaging. He uses vocabulary and dialogue that, unfortunately, no one encounters any more. This a rich story and a must read.



2. There have been attempts over the past 3 decades to humanize the mining business. Fritz's tale, seen through the eyes of a college kid 60 years later, is one of the finest. I know or knew several of the people he describes in his narrative; they'll vouch for his authenticity. Thank-you, Fritz. You have ennobled my friends.



3. I have only one complaint about this book. It says that the hardrock mining industry is all but forgotten. Someone apparently forgot to tell my neighbors who on most days put on their hard hats with headlamps and go down a half mile or so to carve gold ore out of the mountain.
   
   No, the world out here (Nevada) isn't quite like that pictured in the book. Then again, it's closer to the book than is life in most cities. He visits Carol who provides him with a "commercial embrace," for $15 for a half hour. I understand (I've of course no personal experience) that the rate is now $200 for a half hour.
   
   Other details have changed, but the people are much as he describes, good people, the salt of the earth. An excellent tale of times past when we were all a lot younger.



4. I lived for 15 years in the Silver Valley. My husband worked for both the Sunshine Mine and Bunker Hill Mine. His father worked and retired from the Sunshine. Our family enjoyed many years of living in this mining community, enjoying the natural beauty of the Coeurd'Alene river and camping, fishing and hunting in the area. Fritz Wolff's account of his life in that area and his memories of the mining community/industry were a pleasure to read. He wrote of places and people and things familiar to myself and members of my family. I hope many will want to read this book just because it's an interesting read.



5. I was attracted to this book, first by the striking painting on the cover, then by what was inside it. In fact, although I had other things to do I stayed up most of the night reading and finished it the following day. The miners and their families described by Mr. Wolff creates in essence what Garrison Keeler called his "storm family". People in a real mining camp that took the greenhorn from Seattle under their wing and taught him the ropes about hardrock mining, and a lot of other stuff an 18 year old kid needs to know. He uses nouns and verbs in a straight arrow kind of prose that is sparse, but entertaining. It's a people kind of book, and places some unforgettable characters on the map of western history. I hope the author tackles another yarn.

No comments about BEGINNERS FAITH IN THINGS UNSEEN PA (Concord Library).

1 comments about Einstein: Su vida y su universo/ His Life and His Universe.

1. I ordered this book (which was advertised as being signed by the author) as a gift for a friends birthday which was one month following the date of my order. The book took over 2 weeks to arrive and it was NOT SIGNED. Am frustrated and left without enough time to get the gift I intended to give.

No comments about Muller's Lab.

4 comments about Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century.

1. A very interesting and thorough biography of Vannevar Bush, who more than any other individual is responsible (for good or for ill) for the shape of today's scientific establishment. Well-written and engaging, with lots of interesting historical tidbits and good insight on the personalities involved. Excellent!



2. This is a very well written and entertaining book about a scientific administrator who played a major effort in organizing the technical responses required to anticipate and successfully meet the challenges of WWII. His skillful analysis, technical comprehension and political astuteness not only provided outstanding leadership at the time but shaped the intractions of goverment, industry and the academic community in such a fashion as to remain intact to this time. One comes awawy with an enormous respect for Dr. Bush. He must have been one tough character and difficult to deal with but he got the jobs done. It is a pity that his battles with Admiral Ernest King have, to my knowledge, never been documented. The issues they disagreed about were not trivial and their interactions must have been awesome. I read this book shortly after completing Tycho's Island and the similarity between the two men and the administrative issues they dealt with is both striking and illuminating.

   Good men are hard to find and good books about them deserve our attention.




3. More than one person has written on this page that Vannevar Bush is "little known", "forgotten", etc. I am only 54 years old, but I remember seeing Bush's name in print many, many times while growing up. He was always described as crucial to American military and technological supremacy since 1943 or so. A few of his accomplishments: He mobilized American science and engineering during WWII. His leadership was crucial to the Manhattan project. His differential analyzer led to MIT's Lincoln Labs playing an important role in the rise of information technology. He was Claude Shannon's teacher.



4. Zachary deserves great credit for writing a book that offers many virtues and lessons of lasting relevance. Because the author's commitment is worthy of his subject, this book should have timeless value. The roles for science and technology and how best to harness them for prosperity and for security to enable the preservation of peace are questions which transcend any particular time.
   
   The subtitle, Engineer of the American Century, is justified. Bush contributed to American society in many ways. He was a fecund, tireless inventor, helping launch Raytheon Corporation. He was dedicated to boosting the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and thereby strengthening society through teaching and seeking practical knowledge. He was a pioneer and convenor of advances in computing.
   
   Clear-mindedly appreciating the gathering evil of Nazi Germany, Bush decided to do something, as typical. He left MIT and got to Washington as head of the Carnegie Institution. Though a Republican, he persuaded President Franklin Roosevelt that those who were technically educated needed to be harnessed within a National Defense Research Committee, in service to their nation's needs. By helping harness the extraordinary abilities of civilian and academic technologists to serve their nation in meeting the challenges of World War II, Bush helped unleash a cornucopia of inventions and advances in thinking, with extraordinary economic legacies (computing, electronics, medicine, radar).
   
   A few words from Zachary:
   --Bush's "was a life not of looking back, but of charging ahead."
   --He had a "commitment to excellence and integrity that reinforced his belief in the power of one person to make a difference."
   --"Bush shared Eisenhower's unease about the alliance between academia, the military, and industry"
   --"The proliferation of nuclear weapons, the rise of environmental hazards, and the evident political partisanship of many scientists - all combined to engender a cynicism in the public about the aims and evidence of science."
   
   Several other books of possible interest in relation to the contributions of technologists:
   Philip Taubman, Secret Empire (2003)
   James Phinney Baxter, Scientists Against Time (1946)
   Biographies of Edwin Land
   James Killian, Sputniks, Scientists, and Eisenhower (1977). Killian was a 1950s Bush, down to earth and his book is movingly endowed with wisdom.

5 comments about Five Quarts: A Personal and Natural History of Blood.

1. This is a very well written book. If you are looking for an intelligent, but entertainng read...This is the book.



2. Author Hayes mixes science, philosophy and a lot of personal intimacy in this interesting book on blood. A strange subject (though not the strangest around--a recent bestseller is about cadavers.) We have five quarts of the red stuff--hence the title.
   
   The book starts with Bill getting a cut. But then we go on a journey about hemophila and history (the royal house of Great Britain) and we learn about bloodletting, blood banks, and ultimately the AIDS epidemic.
   
   While I would prefer more science and less personal information in a treatise on a scientific subject, that's just me (I studied biology and immunology for quite some years.) But for a non-science-steeped reader, this is a fascinating look at the stuff of life. Recommended, though not for the squeamish.



3. We could be corny and tout this as the kind of book you'll sink your teeth into, but that seems so bloody obvious. Instead we'll say that Five Quarts is a damn good read. Author Bill Hayes uses his HIV-positive status to springboard into a pulsating exploration --- as fascinating as it is frightening, as humorous as it is harrowing --- of the cultural, historical, spiritual and medical myths, misconceptions and marvels of blood. From the legend of Dracula to the scared saga of the Eucharist, from a heart-warming bedside visit with a woman suffering from hemophilia to a look inside a blood bank ... there's lots of interesting and informative on this plate(let).



4. Rarely have I encountered so unflinchingly honest a book. Mr. Hayes has an exceptionally complex relationship with blood; his partner of fourteen years is HIV positive while Mr. Hayes remains HIV free. Therefore, the book falls squarely into its own unique category--it is a journal of discoveries both personal and scientific. Its power is found in the author's candor as he shares his journey of discovery.
   
   The personal dimension of this book is surprisingly vast. Though it does treat the science to the degree one would expect, the scientific and historical discussion is but the lesser portion. The true context lies in the author's expressed need to know what blood is all about and his discovery of how blood-related knowledge has shaped his life. The intensely personal nature of the work gives a depth to the discussion not present in the expected general science genre.
   
   Though the author's frank treatment of his sexual orientation and personal history were startling, it can safely be said that Five Quarts is much more than a memoir and certainly more than the typical general science/history offering. Five Quarts was truly a rare and welcome find.



5. Bill Hayes does a wonderful job of exploring our concepts of blood and sharing his experiences. I feel this book should be required reading for phlebotomists - I am one and found the book on my own and loved it!

3 comments about Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity.

1. This is a review of "Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity," by Andrew Robinson.
   
   For the last three or four years, I have both actively and passively searched for a good introductory book on Einstein, something that is accessible to me as an intelligent non-scientist, but that is broader in scope than I take most of his biographies to be. I want a good, clear explanation of special and general relativity, but I also want to know more about the pacificist and cultural icon, about Einstein as a humanist. No one book has filled the niche. Either you find good discussions of his physics, or you find books on his love life, or you find books that are beautifully produced but have very little substance.
   
   As the centennial of the "miraculous year" of 1905, 2005 has seen a bumper crop of books on Einstein, many of them poorly conceived and some richly priced. But this book is just what I've been looking for for the last few years.
   
   The Editorial Review is wrong in stating that all entries are new except for Einstein's last interview. In fact, a few pages from Einstein's autobiography are also included--and that indicates one reason why this book is so well done. It is divided into two parts; the first has seven chapters on "The Physicist"; the second has eight chapters on "The Man." All of these are written by Andrew Robinson. But interspersed with this biographical-chronological-topical layout are essays by other authors. Einstein contributes a few pages to Part One and a few to Part Two. But there are also four essays by others in Part One and five essays by others in Part Two. It's thrilling to read Stephen Hawking on the history of relativity and Philip Glass on his operatic take on Einstein. The book is not hagiographical. Freeman Dyson's preface mainly discusses the embarrassing (for Einstein) peculiarity that Einstein did not believe in black holes.
   
   The book is full of other goodies. Though the text is more than one finds in a typical coffee-table book, the illustrations are of that beauty and quantity. It's an illustrated book with well-chosen pictures, always with captions. There are notes in the back, a detailed chronology of his life, and a (non-annotated) bibliography. The whole is made authoritative not only by the caliber of its contributors, but by its use of Einstein's archives housed at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
   
   The only way this book could be better is if there were more of it; sometimes the discussions feel rushed and compressed. Also, despite Robinson's literary credentials, I'm not partial to his somewhat awkward, hypertactic writing style.



2. This beautiful, hardcover coffee-table book, whose text is as delightful as its scores of photographs, retails for $29.95--not the $35 that Amazon advertises. It is an amazing value in this day when trade paperbacks often retail for $24.95 and higher.



3. Very well planned, full of meaningfull illustrations, accurately written and revised,this book deserves special attention of everyone interested in Einsteins's personal life and scientific production. Recommended with enthusiasm.

2 comments about Machines Who Think: A Personal Inquiry into the History and Prospects of Artificial Intelligence.

1. The field of artificial intelligence, in terms of its research content, and the confidence it expresses in the results of this research, has executed a roller coaster ride in the last five decades. There have been many proposals, many leads not going anywhere, but just as many leads showing great promise but were abandoned. The reasons why they were abandoned are unclear, but many researchers in artificial intelligence have let them themselves be persuaded that their results do not reflect real intelligence. This has thwarted the development of many promising areas in artificial intelligence, which could have been highly developed by now.

   The author, in this new edition of her book, has given the reader her opinions of the status of artificial intelligence in the twenty-five years after the first edition of the book. Her assessment of the last twenty-five years is in general optimistic, but her review concentrates mostly on research in the academic setting. There have also been dramatic advances in artificial intelligence in the commercial sector in the last twenty-five years, but many of these are difficult to document, since issues of propriety arise in the business environment. The many applications that are used by business and industry are practical proof of the rise of machine intelligence in the last twenty-five years, and many of these make use of the academic developments that the author discusses in this book.

   The self-doubts and concentrated attention expressed by various researchers are well documented by the author, and some interesting historical anecdotes are included. The author describes the "odd paradox" in artificial intelligence as one where the its practical successes are absorbed into the domains in which they found application. Once assimilated, they become "silent partners" alongside other (non-intelligent) approaches. This reinforces the belief that the intelligent applications were not intelligent in the first place, and are then viewed merely as "valuable automatic helpers". This scenario has been played out many times in the history of artificial intelligence, and, even worse, the fact that the workings of these applications were understood made many assert that this was proof of their non-intelligence. If a process or algorithm is understood, it cannot be intelligent. This bias, the author correctly observes, continues to this day. Regardless of these beliefs or prejudices, the fact remains though that many of today's computers and machines are packed full of intelligence, albeit in different levels, and these levels will dramatically increase in the next twenty-five years.

   Researchers in artificial intelligence have been accused of exaggerating the status of machine intelligence, and similar to the same exaggerations that occur in other fields, which arise many times from pressures to obtain funding, these accusations do have some truth to them. But the author points out a case where the funding was cancelled due to the project not being "extravagant enough." This is an interesting historical fact, and one that illustrates the large swings in confidence that have plagued AI research from the beginning.

   The strong emphasis on emulating human intelligence has been dampened in recent years, with researchers realizing, refreshingly, that human intelligence is not the only kind in nature. It is in retrospect quite surprising that silicon-based machines were thought to be able to mimic the processes and powers of biological systems. The author quotes one researcher as saying that "Silicon intelligence would surely be different from human intelligence". This is indeed correct, and one can expect many different types of intelligence to reside in future machines, each of these types emphasizing particular tasks, but being general enough to think in many domains. Maybe a better word for describing the field would be to call it `Alien Intelligence', so as to emphasize the (non-human) idiosyncrasies of these different intelligences.

   With very exceptions, the philosophical community has been against the possibility of artificial intelligence. This continues to this day, and the author discusses some of the philosophical tirades leveled against artificial intelligence since the first edition of the book. Researchers in AI have taken the time (unfortunately) to answer some of these criticisms, but there is also a trend, which hopefully will continue, to ignore them and instead spend time on what is important, namely the design and construction of intelligent machines. There is no penalty in ignoring philosophical criticism; it lends no constructive insight into artificial intelligence. However there is a great penalty taken in the form of wasted hours in attempting to answer the vague and impractical claims of philosophers. Ironically, there have been a few renowned philosophers that have left the practice of philosophy and have entered into research into artificial intelligence (and have done a fine job in this regard).

   The author also shares with the reader her personal insights into artificial intelligence, and these are interesting considering her involvement with some of the major academic experts in AI. She describes her bias in thinking of (mobile) robots as the sole representative of artificial intelligence. This bias has been alleviated to a large degree in the last decade, but many still equate artificial intelligence to the presence of bipedal robots wandering around performing useful tasks or possibly acting as adversaries to human beings. The latter view of course is very popular in Hollywood interpretations of artificial intelligence. The real truth though is that (immobile) machines, be they servers in networks, laptop computers, or other types of machines, can exhibit high levels of intelligence, depending on what kind of "software" or "mind" is overlaid on them.

   The most important thing to be settled for the field of artificial intelligence, and this is brought out also in many of the author's remarks, is a general methodology for gauging machine intelligence. The Turing test is too subjective and tied too much to measures of human intelligence. The AI community definitely needs to arrive at quantitative measures of machine intelligence in order to assess progress and allow the business community to judge more accurately whether a certain level of machine intelligence is needed for their organizations.




2. Twenty five years ago Pamela McCorduck wrote a definitive book on Artificial Intelligence. She first went among the artificial intelligentsia when the field was fresh and new, and she asked the scientists engaged in it what they were doing and why. She saw artificial intelligence as the scientific apotheosis of one of the most enduring, glorious, often amusing, and sometimes alarming, traditions of human culture: the endless fascination with artifacts that think.
   
   Long out of print, it became a classic, often quoted, but not often read. Now it's back and in a new edition with an extended afterword that brings the field up to date in the last quarter century, including its scientific and public faces. McCorduck shows how, from a slightly dubious fringe science, artificial intelligence has moved slowly to a central place in our everyday lives, and how it will be even more crucial as the World Wide Web moves into its next generation.

5 comments about Einstein in Love: A Scientific Romance.

1. This book gave me a much more detailed and intimate look at Einstein's personal and intellectual life than anything else I've read, and it makes for a truly fascinating read. Overbye spent years poring through Einstein's letters and personal papers to research and write this book, and it shows.

   There is a wealth of detail describing and chronicling Einstein's life as he struggled with the creation of the momentous scientific discoveries that were to make him famous, especially the long and difficult path to his final solution for the General Relativity problem. Along with this, you get a detailed look even into his personal day-to-day life, learning about his friends, scientific associates, and even his loves. Einstein is no longer a towering, remote intellect plumbing the depths and secrets of the universe in cloistered solitude; Overbye's account displays Einstein's very human side also, showing him to be a man of his times, often with Bohemian and avant-garde personal, social, and political ideas. For example, Overbye mentions how Einstein and his first wife, Mileva, had their first baby out of wedlock, and subsequently married. And the dark side of Einstein's personal life, the unhappy ending to his first marriage and his often careless dealings with the women in his life, don't escape Overbye's purview.

   But don't be misled by the title, it's not just about Einstein's sometimes checkered love-life (although he did have more romantic dalliances than I would have expected); Overbye also does an excellent job of presenting Einstein's most important ideas, including a good explanation of the special and general theory of relativity.

   And last but not least, Overbye is a fine writer whose prose flows and doesn't get in the way of the story, and who has a good command not only of the personal, but also the scientific side of Einstein's life. Altogether a well-written and fascinating book on a fascinating historical and scientific figure.

   (P.S. Did anybody happen to notice the title of my review is the sub-title for Edwin Abbott's classic mathematical and social allegory, "Flatland, a Romance of Many Dimensions?" But it works equally well here as a segue into my review of Overbye's biography.)




2. Dennnis Overbye has been blessed with a unique talent - the ability to translated complex scientific theory into language that the thinking reader can understand. In "Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos" we read about the theory and history of cosmology along with the personal travails of one scientist an the bitter infighting among all scientists. In this non-novel novel, we are immersed into the nascent world of relativity. From its theoretical origins [thinking outside the box] we are given a review of classical physics and the theories / illuminations of the greatest scientist of this age.

   The scientific story advances within the framework of Einstein's personal life. It is rare that an individual can succeed in all areas of endeavor, be they love, work or play. One feels some disappointment with his personal travails and while he may appear cold or disloyal, many times great people sublimate their relationships to their passion.

   Unlike other intellectuals whose personal lives were a total repudiation of the their professed ideology (Marx was an utter slackard, Hellman and Brecht were serial liars, Fuller switched positions with the wind, scolding the world when they began to ignore his newest mania), Einstein never tried to impose a social scheme on others. He loved quietly as one should and made his mistakes in private, again as one should. All in all, a successful work.




3. While separated from wife #1, Mileva, Albert wrote to her a completely one-sided contract of reconciliation (p 267). When she accepted his terms, he backed out because she didn't show proper appreciation for his "generous" offer. During this time, he was having an affair with Elsa (eventual 2nd wife), but this was muddied when he also fell in love with Elsa's daughter, Ilse. Being a little more wishy-washy in romance than he was in physics, he let the women work it out as to who he was going to marry! They decided on Elsa. Many years later, Elsa allowed him to carry on an affair twice a week with a certain woman as long as he remained chaste otherwise. As Albert wrote in a poem to a friend, "the upper half thinks and plans, but the lower half determines our fate."
   
   Thanks to Overbye's superb research, we are presented with a history of Albert (as the author always calls him) directly from letters and documents mostly written by Einstein himself. Not by any means limited to his romantic life, we are treated to an in-depth discussion of how he worked his physics out. For example, far from isolated while a patent clerk in his miracle year of 1905, he was actively corresponding with several other physicists, editing scientific journals and conducting "think tanks" about theoretical physics with friends, including wife #1, Mileva. Most of his adult life, he conducted an active social life centered around these think tanks with revolving membership, sometimes involving entertaining others with his excellent violin playing, and frequently women. When he landed his first teaching job, he was unpleasantly surprised by the time and effort it took to compose a decent a comprehensible set of lectures. He toiled conscientiously over his talks, eventually becoming a sought after keynote speaker who would lecture two hours daily for several days at prestigious conventions about subjects involving aspects of relativity.
   
   Overbye has written a brilliantly insightful book that brings into focus Albert's creative and unique approach to physics along with his sometimes "teen-ager in love" approach to romance. Scattered throughout the book are first hand looks at many famous scientists of the day, including other Nobel prize winners in their correspondence and first hand interactions with the charming Einstein. If I must criticize this book, it does seem to end rather abruptly, and covers the last 25 years of his life in very few pages. Perhaps another book is lurking in Overbye's mind for these years, for which there are undoubtedly volumes of more correspondence from the prolific Albert Einstein. A very enthusiastic 5 stars for this exhilarating read.



4. In this book, Dennis Overbye contributes important history to the already crowded canon on Einstein. That is no easy feat, but as he deftly demonstrated in his brilliant book, "Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos," Overbye has an uncanny ability to research and illuminate the human side of scientists and, in doing so, show us not only the human contribution to cold science but also scientific achievement in spite of the human condition. Overbye also has a nifty ability to explain complicated science to the layman--in this case Newtonian, relativistic and quantum physics--and he succeeds here reasonably well.
   
   What emerges is the portrait of a very handsome, sexy, playful, erudite, restless and headstrong physicist immersed in a world on the verge of two world wars and a revolution in our understanding of the physical universe. His passions in love were as strong and complicated as those he brought to both making sense of a world of physics beset by new empirical evidence at odds with traditional theory and a world of geopolitics being torn asunder.
   
   Overbye is at his best when illuminating the science and the politics of science, so the life-long sturm and drang of Einstein's love and domestic life become almost-tedious distractions by the latter third of the book, but overall this very interesting book should keep you enthralled from cover to cover.



5. Overbye(O) has done his homework with just one minor slip .The result is an excellent overview of the real Einstein.This book can be viewed as an excellent follow up to the excellent book by Roger Highfield and Paul Carter on Einstein published in 1993.O shows clearly that Einstein did realize the importance of the Michelson-Morley light reflection-refraction experimant that demonstrated (a) that the speed of light had to be a constant and (b)that the ether,the medium in which light waves were supposed to be carried in,did not exist.Einstein's refusal to list any references for the relativity paper,given his own extensive work for,and reading and understanding of the rules and procedures of conduct required for publication in academic journals,in the period from 1895-1905,means that it is highly probable, when combined with a careful technical reading of the first 48 of the 54 extant letters of exchange between Albert and Mileva in the period Oct.,1897 and Dec.,1901,that Mileva deserved to be listed as a co-author on one or more of the 4 papers published in 1905 that led to Albert's Nobel Prize award in Physics.
   O's slip is his failure to go over the letters of exchange between Albert and Mileva in far greater detail than he does.The letters reveal that Einstein was clearly discussing highly technical aspects of his ongoing research with Mileva and asking for her aid and assistance.The smoking gun, demonstrating Albert Einstein's deception,duplicity,and devious nature in his interactions with Mileva, is his continual references in these letters to " our work " and "our theory".These phrases mean exactly what they say-Einstein was working with Mileva as a team.Period.

1 comments about Argonaut: The Submarine Legacy of Simon Lake (West Texas a&M University Series, No. 4).

1. For the past 80 years or so, Simon Lake has stood in the shadow cast by John P Holland, the man now generally accorded the title 'Father of the Submarine'. But in the early 1900s, Connecticut yankee Lake seemed at least as likely to earn the soubriquet. Lake was Holland's equal as an inventor, and his submarines were the only ones constructed in the US which were as good as the Holland boats. Moreover, Lake was easily the better businessman and for a long time led the Electric Boat Company (which acquired Holland's patents) in export sales. Lake boats were supplied to Russia (the Lake Co. going to great lengths to smuggle them past US customs during the Russo-Japanese war) and Austria-Hungary, and - thanks to the anti-monopolist stance of the American government - they were also purchased by the US Navy for a few years before World War I. Lake's boats were technically as successful as the Holland types which eventually eclipsed them, though built on rather different principals. Their inventor retained faith in the idea of submerging vertically, rather than diving, and persisted in fitting his craft with wheels to allow them to run along the bottom. Unlike the Irish-American John Holland, whose designs were inspired by the idea of attacking British warships, Lake also believed in submarines for commercial purposes such as wrecking and pearl-diving, and his boats were fitted with diving chambers which also made them very suitable for mine-laying and mine-clearing operations. The story of how Lake built his first experimental boats of wood and, eventually, a large shipbuilding concern in Bridgport is a fascinating one, and Poluhowich tells is competently enough, if not in any great detail. But the book is marred by the lack of anything approaching enough original material. Although the author became acquainted with Lake's son and includes some new anecdotal information from this source, there is a disappointing dearth of worthwhile material from the US archives, much less anything from Austria or Russia. With Lake's somewhat mendacious autobiography, and his book on the development of the submarine, still fairly readily available through online second-hand book services, Argonaut is not the major contribution to the literature that it could have been. Solid, but a missed opportunity nonetheless.