I gave this book, and a model kit of the Hunley, to my father-in-law a few years ago for Christmas. While staying with my in-laws recently, I needed a book to read and noticed that Raising the Hunley was still there, so I grabbed it. In theory, it's the kind of book I should really enjoy. Though I'm not at all a Civil War buff, I do enjoy reading interesting accounts of history, and I've always had an interest in archaeology. Unfortunately, the book doesn't work very well. The main problem is that I felt the story the authors were telling--about "the world's first attack submarine, lost for over 100 years on the bottom of the sea"--was almost a non-story (sometimes amusingly so). The authors (both journalists) use hyperbolic verbiage throughout the book, in order to convince the reader (and maybe themselves?) that what they're writing about is one of the greatest things in the history of the world. I just never bought into the significance of the Hunley. It was an early submarine, which sank twice before going on its first mission, and then on the first mission it sank one blockading Union ship before sinking itself, for the final time. After that, it was lost in the sea until 1995, when Clive Cussler's NUMA organization found it. In 2000 the Hunley was raised, and it is now undergoing study. Hicks and Kropf frantically reach for any tangential details that will fill out the historical background, and then explain the process of location and raising. The preservation and research is ongoing even now, so this account from 2002 gives only the very beginning of what researchers hope to accomplish through the study.

The discovery of the Hunley was contested, with one diver claiming very strongly that he found it before NUMA did. Other people also had problems working with NUMA. But because the authors are in awe of Clive Cussler (they refer to him as "His Authorship"; please...), Cussler and NUMA can do no wrong in this version of the story. All their reporting may be accurate, but the obvious reverence for Cussler gives an air of bias that I sometimes found uncomfortable.

The insert section of photos is not very good, but there are many more photos on the Hunley website. I think just reading that website (though it's not the smoothest site ever, and it doesn't appear to be updated very often) would be better than reading Hicks and Kopf's book. It's an interesting story to know about, but I didn't think it was worth an entire book; or, if it does deserve a book, it deserves better authors.