The late Len Bates has culminated a life-time of research with this biography of Thomas Walsh, senator from Montana and major political player in the first third of the twentieth century. This work fills a major gap in the account of this period, and speaks most directly to Progressive period and the 1920s, as well as to the surprisingly complex political history of America's Western states. Bates has no particular axe to grin, but confines himself to a measured, factual, but entertaining account that says much about the realities of reform and politics in American society Good history, well done!