A very good book if you are interested in the late Victorian origins of science fiction. Also for those interested in the mini-genre known as 'steampunk'. This is a story about terrorism, technology, and anarchy written over a hundred years ago. On the surface it seems very similar to much of Verne's work, (Hartmann the Anarchist is a madman who builds a huge airship which he uses to bomb major cities all over europe) but the book goes much deeper into the political motivations of the character, and contains an intersting dialogue between the underground socialist and anarchist movements in the 1890's. I'm sure it was a radical novel at the time, but went largely unnoticed.

The bad points first...

Being a Linoln buff myself, but certainly not a scholar on the subject, I found this book to be a worthwhile addition to my library but one that is seriously flawed. The first chapter goes into painstaking detail about Lincoln's wrestling match with Jack Armstrong in New Salem. I think a wrestling historian would find it more useful than someone interested in our 16th president. Endless second and third-hand accounts of the match are analyzed in detail. And for what? No reliable conclusions can be drawn from these contradictory accounts. The first chapter could have been summarized in two words...who knows? And I'm not really sure who cares either. I found this chapter to be a bit bizarre.

My other criticism of the book is that it is very poorly organized, in my opinion. In fact, only the first chapter sticks to the topic of it's title. The rest of the book seems to be organized into chapters only for the purpose of giving the reader a needed break from the tedium. Sure, you will find something about Lincoln's relationship with women in the chapter entitled, "Women," but you will find just as much about this subject in just about any other chapter. And you will learn about his politics in the chapter about women, etc. It almost seems as if Mr. Wilson just pinned a title to the top of a page now and then without regard to what followed. This lack of structure also results in a great deal of repetition. The same quotes are repeated again and again and again which would not have been necessary if each chapter stuck with it's title subject. One hopes that this lack of organization is not a reflection of Mr. Wilson's research skills.

On the plus side, if you can wade through the book, which is tedious to the extreme at times, you may end up with a more textured view of Lincoln the man. The book can help one to fill in the blanks of Lincoln's life but it is almost entirely based on educated guesses and conclusions on Mr. Wilson's part. In a sense, the book is reminiscent of Gore Vidal's Lincoln. But such conjecture can be useful, of course if we are searching for that "ring of truth" to fill in the blanks.

All in all, I consider this to be a useful addition to my fairly extensive Lincoln library but I certainly would not recommend it as a first book about Lincoln by any means and I think Mr. Wilson would agree with that assessment. The author writes that the book is not intended for scholars, but I find it difficult to see why the person with a more casual interest in Lincoln would be interested in these endless details which really never reach a conclusion. The book is, however, instructive as to how incorrect information is passed on and accepted as fact by generations of historians.

This book asks more questions than it answers but, ironically, the overall result is a much better picture of Lincoln. I would recommend this book only to the serious Lincoln student.

Wilson opens "Honor's Voice" with an overly long introduction to his methodology, which, in brief, is to sort through all the bits and tales and legends about Abraham Lincoln from age 22 to 33, and weighing the stories for credibility and accuracy, reach the truest picture of the young man. Because there is no shortage of material, Wilson has focused on ten themes, including how he educated himself, how he entered politics, his relations with women, and particularly with Mary Todd, etc.

The problem is that it's not clear for whom Wilson is writing. Wilson himself declares that the book is not for academics, but who else would be interested in a work that is less about Lincoln than about stories about Lincoln? Few of the legion Lincoln fans, save scholars, would have the interest or the patience for a tedious historiography and word-by-word analysis of obscure letters and notes about the life of their subject. For example, the first chapter examines a wrestling match Lincoln had at age 22, and fully describes the match and its significance in three interesting pages. The problem is the chapter goes of for 33 pages, citing dozens of sources, including eyewitnesses as well as later biographers, analyzes differences in their accounts of the match, and weighs them against each other for credibility. This approach may be a useful "how to" for amateur historians, but most readers would likely prefer more history and less methodology.

Fortunately, the first chapter is the toughest sledding. The subsequent ones follow the same pattern, but are far more readable, relying less on Wilson's interior dialogues on reliability and veracity. Lincoln's character slowly and arduously emerges, and Lincoln fans with the patience to wade through will find loads of interesting detail, such as on his surveying and early political careers. Wilson also excerpts snatches of Lincoln's favorite poems (Burns, Byron, etc.) to excellent effect in demonstrating both source and reflection of Lincoln's state of mind. The speculation on his melancholy and on his tragic romance with Ann Rutledge are well worthwhile, if a bit tedious.

The book is a good one, but could be much better. Perhaps Wilson will follow up with a book of half the length giving a detailed and straightforward history of this fascinating period in Lincoln's life based on the conclusions from this work, but omitting the tedium and repetition

Teachers in criminal justice classes, I am told, often stage mock crimes in their classrooms. In the middle of a lecture, for example, a bandit will barge in, threaten the students, and make off with the professor's wallet. The students, at first shocked but then relieved when told that it was a staged event, are then asked to describe the event. What did the suspect look like? How tall was he? What color hair did he have? What was he wearing? What did he say? Invariably, there are multiple answers to those questions. People saw different things. No one version of what occurred is totally accurate.

Wilson's book confronts that perennial problem of human perception. Though his 'transformation of Lincoln' plows familiar ground - how one solitary, unschooled backwoods man transformed himself into a national, albeit polarizing figure, through willpower, endurance, ambition, guts, and brains - his careful forensic method, as judge and jury of a multitude of competing facts and interpretations, makes this book a compelling tale, as much about how history is written as it is about how Lincoln evolved.

And this is why I disagree with the reviews that describe this book as long-winded, tough-sledding and over-detailed. In Honor's Voice, Wilson provides a valuable glimpse into the historian's bag of tricks. Wilson takes each of the iconic moments of Lincoln's life - his storied wresting match with Jack Armstrong, his self-education, his disastrous romance with Ann Rutledge - and peels apart the layers, examining the historical record as closely as possible, evaluating the claims of eyewitnesses and second-hand sources, and holding each up to scrutiny before making any assertions; and even then, he is admirably cautious. Wilson presents a lot of quotes, exactly as written, from contemporaries who witnessed, or claimed to have witnessed, crucial events in Lincoln's life, and asks: Is this the truth? Who could have benefit from enhancing the truth? Who was really there? What about the quote lends it authenticity, or falsity? Yes, the narrative covers the same event numerous times, but this is the price one pays of exactness. Like the criminal justice students who have competing recollections of a recent event, not one of Lincoln's contemporaries knows the whole truth. But taken together, one gets a more clear picture of what might have happened.

The risk, of course, is boredom and the frustration of dealing with multiple sources of the same event; but the reward is a new appreciation of Lincoln the man, as well as the historian's challenge of teasing out the facts in an era long since vanished.

Mr. Douglas, with the Dept of Interior, has done a very good job carefully, precisely describing the boundaries of the United States, individually and collectively. I was aware of issues related to the creation of the State of Ohio's northern border, and found a detailed and complete writing in this book. Also, the debate over the exact date of statehood for Ohio and the issue over the exact border of Michigan and Wisconsin are well documented. If you require a precise writing on state borders and issues related with their establishment, this is the text you are looking for.

Gough Whitlam is one of Australia's more controversial Prime Ministers. He was in power from 1972 to 1975 and is seen by his supporters as a person who brought Australia into the 20th Century but by his detractors as a man who destroyed the economy of the country.

He led the Australian Labour party which was out of power from 1949 to when he led it to an election victory in 72. To do this Whitlam had to reform the party. He was behind the intervention in the Victorian Branch to get rid of a small cabal of left wing election losers. He was behind the constitution to remove the suggestion that the party was controlled by faceless men. He also worked out a program which for an Australian Party was revolutionary.

Once in power he withdrew Australian forces from Vietnam, recognised China, disbanded what was left of the White Australia policy and he reformed the divorce law and established Australia's health care system. Unfortunately he then ran into the stagflation which overran the Western World due to American deficiet spending and the OPEC Oil embargo.

Whitlam was forced by a hostile conservative senate to an election in 1974 and then again the refusal to pass supply led to teh constitutional crisis of 1975 which in turn led to Whitlam being sacked and suffering a massive electoral defeat.

This book is an account of Whitlam's career but it is reasably negative. Alan Reid was a press club figure who also wrote on John Gorton and was hostile to both Gorton and Whitlam more for reasons of style than their political substance. Never the less it is a book that those who dislike Whitlam would like, whilst his fans would prefer A Certain Granduer by his speech writer Freudenberg.

This book does not work on any level. Once again, it proves that extensive research isn't enough to make a historical novel good.

Savage postulates that Lee is court-martialed over the defeat at Gettysburg, the trial taking place some time during the winter of 1863. This gives Savage an opportunity to run through all of Lee's battles (with a side trip to Jackson's Valley Campaign) and command decisions up until then. As an amateur scholar who enjoys reading nonfiction studies, I still found these segments excruciatingly boring. The more fictional bits, the court-martial itself, were slow as well and the characterization seemed flawed. Savage doesn't have anything interesting to say about Lee, his leadership, and why he should or should not have been court-martialed; he recaps other scholars' arguments with no particular insight.

The use of language in this book was horrifically bad. This is an example:

"He had foresworn strong drink as a teenager for his mother."

Whoa. Think about that one a while.

Despite the work the author has apparently put in, I see no reason whatsoever why anyone would want to read this book.

This book is semi-enjoyable for its quotes of famous individuals in the Civil War, but at the end leaves the reader unsatisfied. If the author decided to "spicen" up this book with more controversial individuals associated with the Confederacy, i.e. Nathan Bedford Forrest, Braxton Bragg, and added some life to these members and others in the book, it could of been a treat to read. The author decided to use to much direct quotes from individuals, and did not use his own imagination to make the life, court martial and thoughts of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and others more interesting. Overall a dry and unsatisfying read.

i enjoyed this book immensely being an avid civil war buff and all. a great book for those who really love history