The authors begin their book with the assertion, “Many linguists today assume thattheirs is an empirical and deductive science, and that scientific progress in the domain of theirresearch is possible” (p. 1). They then proceed in an interesting, well-written, andinformative case study of the evolution of generative grammar to cast doubt on the veracity ofthis assertion. The central focus is the nature of the debates among researchers developing whatcame to be known as generative semantics and interpretive semantics. The book attempts todetail who influenced whom and who was interested in what. More particularly, Huck andGoldsmith ask to what extent data, analyses, and argumentation were critical to the debates. Thecentral question is: To what extent were generativist scholars moved one way or the other byrational considerations? The answer, not surprisingly, is: Not much. The real story is one aboutpersonalities, not about truth and reason. They attempt to explain why paying particular attentionto the personalities involved, the role of the linguistic institutions where the participants worked,and the research agendas of each is important.