Wade's work is hardly comparable to Lord's seminal effort, "A Night to Remember." Especially misleading is the book's title, which gives no hint that its focus is on the American inquiry into the disaster, or - perhaps more accurately - on Senator Smith of Michigan, who chaired the inquiry. The book's first few chapters are inexplicably devoted to Smith, and it is obvious Wade takes great umbrage with the senator's subsequent fade into obscurity. The time wasted on Smith - including pages of irrelevant background on Smith's childhood - would have been far better spent on the inquiry and the survivor stories. On the inquiry, Wade does a fine job of capturing the chaos of the moment, as well as the meticulous work performed by Smith and others as they attempted to understand what had transpired. And, Wade should be commended for devoting a work solely to this long-forgotten chapter in American history. But how much better would it have been had less time been spent glorifying Smith and more time dissecting the actual inquiries.

Years ago, this was the first Titanic book I ever read, and it had an incredible influence on me. End of a Dream is a wonderfully-researched, wonderfully-written account of the aftermath, a fascinating subject given only a few pages in every other Titanic book I know of. However, it does have its flaws. I don't believe that Wade gives too much credit to Senator Smith, but I do think that in promoting his hero's place in history, he neglects some aspects of the story. For example, he pays too little attention to an area of the inquiry that raised many voices in 1912 -the question of whether news of the disaster had been covered up- as well as Philip Franklin, the major figure in that controversy. Franklin played a part in the inquiry almost as great as that of his employer Ismay, but he is a made minor figure in Wade's drama, as well as a rather ridiculous one. (He also gets his first name misspelled.) I don't mean to be over-critical of Wade, whose book was a landmark in Titanic study and remains one of the two best works on the subject today, but I do think that in order to increase the light shining on Smith he may have dimmed those shining on the equally interesting people around him. His book could have also benefited from a more appropriate title and cover blurb.

The Titanic is the story of the greatest ocean disaster of at least this century. This does not include wartimes naval tragedies for this event in 1912 did not need to happen. As the 2nd Officer of the Titanic,Lightoller,once commented that it was all against us that night. The events of that night and others that lead up to it are recalled with fresh memories. This due to the work of a Senator from Michigan and his committee who actually met the rescue ship Carpathia in New York and served many of the notables with subpoenas. The Inquiry was held within a week of the rescue ship arriving in New York. As time goes on the stories of fact get embellished to small and great degrees. This book deals with a source that was very fresh and thus gives a great read that fills in so many details. It is a book you can't put down I rate it among the best ever written on the Titanic. Right up there with the best author on this subject Walter Lord. Mr Wade did a tremendous job in his take on that incredible night the Titanic went down.

If you have seen the movie by James Cameron or any other drama of lesser quality,which speak for most of them, go and Buy the Book. When you finish you will begin to understand why the story of this so rumoured unsinkable ship stands the test of time.

With the exception of the appendixes, Wyn Wade has written a book so obviously biased in favor of anti-Klan propaganda tha he may as well have not done any research at all. A telling mark is the fact that Wade dedicated the book to his "Radical Republican" grandmother. Wade glosses over the horrors inflicted upon the White population of the South during the reconstruction, choosing instead to do everything but pin knighthoods on the carpetbaggers, scalawags, Yankee imperialists and their negro henchmen. Klans of later decades don't fair much better as Wade manages to portray them as either idiot yahoos or psychotics. Wade neglects to mention the many good deeds of the Klan and fails to differentiate between activity of legitimate members of the Invisible Empire and that of criminals hiding behind the orders hoods. Wade is a propagandist of the worst kind and, if there were any justice in the world, he'd be tarred and feathered and hung.

I believe that the other reviewers are being a little harsh. I have surveyed a good deal of the Klan literature, and found this book actually "fairly" good in comparison. Do I think that it is unbiased or totally accurate? - NO. But it is better than most current academic research, which when dealing with a topic such as this goes out of its way to condemn the Klan. From the standpoint of organizational history, this book is the best that I have come across. Wade's social analysis is suspect however. I do recommend it however, for anyone interested in the internal power struggles and organizational history of the Klan. The Klan literature which Wade includes is also fascinating.

In this book Wyn Wade has given us a very good overview but not an extremely detailed look at the Ku Klux Klan. That is not to say that he has not done his research for he has found lots of material. The simple fact is that a book of this length cannot possibly cover the subject in any great depth. That would require a book at least twice this long, and probably three times as long. This book was obviously not intended to be a Shelby Foote type narrative of the Klan, but the basic survey that it is.

Wade has done a good job with the post reconstruction Klan, but he tends to take revisionist history a bit too far. One thing that puzzles me is that he refers to Tennessee as the, "the only border state" that left the Union. Many historians refer to the Volunteer State as a border state even though it was surrounded by slave states on all sides, so I can let that part of the statement slide. I have never however heard of Tennessee referred to as a border state without at least Virginia and Arkansas also receiving that label. It's not a big thing I realize, but it did bug me.

After reconstruction, Wade takes the reader to the history of D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation", the movie that made the rebirth and rise of the post World War I Klan possible. Then he traces the new Klan through its phenomenal growth to its demise. Wade then moves on to the Cold War anti-Communist Klan, the Civil Rights era Klan, the David Duke Klan, and today's Aryan crowd. He does a fine job of bringing out the personalities of various Klan leaders and giving the lowdown on various politicians who, while not Klansmen themselves, were more than happy to court Klan support. He also does an outstanding job of telling the story of Klan violence, with special attention to the victims.

Wade ends this fascinating book with the story of the groups that have been organized to oppose the Klan and the FBI campaign that brought the Klan to its knees. Finally, Wade warns the reader that the Klan is still out there and should never be pronounced dead. The Klan has proven its resilience again and again he warns and his excellent book will give the reader many reasons to be wary of the men behind the masks.