An Uncertain Tradition: U.S. Senators from Illinois, 1818-2003

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An Uncertain Tradition: U.S. Senators from Illinois, 1818-2003. By David Kenney and Robert E. Hartley (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003. Pp. Xvii, 254. 111., tables, bib., index. Cloth, $30.00).

This compendium of forty-seven analytical biographies of United States senators is unique to Illinois. Southern Illinois Press deserves its award from the state historical society for handsomely producing such a broad-ranging collected biography. Every senator is included (except of course Barak Obama). Obviously the authors had to rush over some of the more obscure nineteenth-century figures and, indeed, over some of the obscure recent figures such as Ralph Tyler …