TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 761 In any case, Thornton marshaled his talents to win the competi tion, thereby producing the basic design ofwhat is arguably the most famous structure in American history. Appointed one of the District of Columbia’s commissioners soon afterward, he had the opportu nity to oversee the early construction of the Capitol and to modify the design as problems appeared. However, he did not oversee the completion of the first halls of Congress, a task given to the profes sionally trained Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who PresidentJefferson felt was better suited for the task. Beyond architecture and steamboats, Thornton had a supple tech nological imagination, for which he drew on an extensive body of reading and observation. The documents in this volume demon strate his willingness to draft schemes and give advice on such diverse topics as sanitation, heating, weaponry, wharfing, and plantation agriculture, in the process illuminating many aspects of contempo rary technology. In Brooke Hindle’s view (cited in this volume) Thornton had the capacity for spatial thinking that marks an inven tive technologist. Editorial information here is appropriate and ample, although the form ofthe editorial apparatus seems awkward to use. It is also unfor tunate that the reader has to wait until the end of the volume to encounter the most effective and informative headnote, one that explains Thornton’s involvement in a range of architectural and technological projects. In sum, there is much here to repay the reader interested not only in Thornton but also in his times. Judging by this contribution, the next volume ofthe Papers ofWilliam, Thornton should be eagerly antic ipated. Darwin H. Stapleton Dr. Stapleton is the director of the Rockefeller Archive Center. He was the editor of The Engineering Drawings ofBenjamin Henry Latrobe (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Uni versity Press, 1980) and associate editor of The Correspondence ofBenjamin Henry La trobe, 3 vols. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1984-88). A Questfor Glory: A Biography ofRearAdmiralJohn A. Dahlgren. By Rob ertJ. ShnellerJr. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Pp· xvii+452; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $37.95 (cloth). John Dahlgren lived with contradiction. The United States Navy’s foremost gunnery innovator and founder of its Bureau of Ordnance was a modern technical specialist in a traditional navy. An obsessive self-promoter, Dahlgren achieved the rank of rear admiral for his ordnance work, but he still felt compelled to seek glory in battle to seal his legacy. In Quest for Glory, Robert J. Shneller Jr. chronicles 762 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Dahlgren’s dual career as an ordnance expert and a fleet com mander. The book makes extensive use of Dahlgren’s diaries and personal papers and sets him within the rich contexts of 19th-cen tury naval doctrine, technology, and policy. Though stiffly written and in need ofmore aggressive editing, Shneller’s book sheds impor tant new light on this significant and complicated man. Born in 1809, Dahlgren joined the navy in 1826 as part of what would become the “steam generation” of young naval officers. He spent several years in the United States Coast Survey under the men torship of Ferdinand Hassler, who provided him a practical and the oretical apprenticeship in science and a wealth of experience with instruments. Dahlgren found his true niche, however, at the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydgrography at the Washington Navy Yard in 1847. He soon took charge of all ordnance work at the yard and applied his scientific background to building and testing guns. He used scientific instruments from the Coast Survey, for example, to evaluate firing tests. Dahlgren consciously modeled his fledgling or ganization on the Army’s Ordnance Department, employing the assistance of the Army’s ordnance expert, Alfred Mordecai. One wishes Shneller made more of this important connection: it links, through the person ofJohn Dahlgren, the Army’s “armory system” of manufacture with revolutions in naval technology and administra tion. Within five years of his arrival in Washington, Dahlgren invented his famous gun. Distributing strength according to the decreasing pressure ofexpanding gases down the barrel gave the gun its distinc tive “soda bottle” appearance. This design, combined with novel construction techniques, rigid quality control...