Doug Gordon has done a tremendous service in writing what is, to this reviewer's knowledge, the first attempt at a comprehensive history of U.S. Air Force tactical reconnaissance in over 40 years, since Glenn B. Infield's book "Unarmed and Unafraid" from 1970.Based on extensive interviews and many years of scouring archives for official histories, "U.S.A.F. Tactical Reconnaissance of the Cold War", Gordon not only revisits many of the personalities introduced in the earlier book but presents a wealth of first-person information from the men who flew those missions. This alone makes his book a valuable resource for anyone interested in military aviation, or indeed Cold War history in general. While many of the strategic reconnaissance missions conducted against the Soviet Union and its allies have come to light in recent years, the role of tactical reconnaissance assets during this period have remained largely unknown. Gordon sheds much new light on missions to locate Soviet bombers and MiG bases during the Korean war and immediately afterwards, extensive reconnaissance programs conducted across the Iron Curtain in Europe, and provides a very welcome contribution to the beginnings of tactical reconnaissance operations in Southeast Asia in the early 1960s.Gordon captures in indelible fashion the harrowing intensity of reconnaissance missions against alerted air defense forces eager to down an American aircraft. Building his narrative upon the scaffold provided by official USAF histories, his account adds a very human element to the subject of men flying into harm's way alone, unarmed, and with every reason to be afraid yet doing it anyway, day in and day out. Gordon also does an excellent job of explaining how different tactical reconnaissance platforms complemented each other over the years, as well as the challenges of maintaining that integration with changing aircraft, sensors, missions, enemy threats, or with increasingly scarce but uniquely capable platforms just being worn out or shot down. As an appendix, Gordon provides a concise but very useful history and description of tactical reconnaissance aircraft and camera systems.The only negatives in this review are that the manuscript could have benefited from more careful editing as there are a number of typos present. The quality of reproduction of many of the photos leaves something to be desired, but this is far more than counterbalanced by the fact that most of these photos are unique and have never before been published. My copy was received with a different dust jacket than that illustrated here, but attractive nonetheless.All-in-all, Doug Gordon has presented a masterpiece with enough new information to keep nascent historians busy for many years with new questions and lines of inquiry. The depth, extent, and integrity of Doug Gordon's research shows in each page of this singularly valuable book.