In an era when children at county fairs went on rides in a biplane with an itinerant and not completely respectable pilot, applying aviation to military maneuvers was an exciting idea that was completely untried. Chambers's career went from driving an effort to rework the rotting US naval fleet into technically advanced battleships to torpedo design, reconstruction of shipbuilding yards, and in a fascinating partnership with Glenn Curtis, development of naval aviation. Stein (history, U. of Memphis) understands it took a hard-driving officer like Chambers to get the funding for new technologies from politicians and appointees, and shows the effects of all that driving in modern shipbuilding and aviation, but is also completely honest in describing why Captain Chambers never made admiral, even though it would cost the Navy nothing. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)