At the heart of W. B. Carnochan's argument are the reliability of evidence, the complexity of character, and the nature of historical truth. Suggesting that the historian's work is only as good as the available evidence, Carnochan details the recent discovery of John Hanning Speke's account of his last meeting with Richard Burton. It is startlingly different from Burton’s, and while it sheds new light on whether the term “cad” was warranted, it also demonstrates the hazards of historical reconstruction.

The key issues of the historical controversy relate to the expected outcome of successful African explorations. Fame and fortune compensated for the many difficult “adventures.” Beginning with the Scotsman James Bruce, the impulse driving the search for the source of the Nile included the expected honors that would reward success. Speke's unexpected discovery of the Nile source in Lake Victoria robbed Burton, who was absent at the time, of those honors. Burton rejected Speke's claim on the basis that he was an inexperienced African explorer, an Indian Army officer on leave and on a hunting safari, and lacking in knowledge of Africa. By contrast, Burton was a celebrated explorer of “forbidden” places such as Mecca and Medina, and more recently of Harrar in Abyssinia. It seems probable that Burton subsequently translated Speke's resentment over the rewriting of his Somali journal into a scenario in which Speke sought revenge on Burton by going to the Royal Geographic Society despite his promise not to do so. The breaking of this promise labeled Speke a “cad,” a serious aspersion on his reputation. Despite the escalating dispute in their published works, Speke set out on his second trip of exploration funded by the Royal Geographic Society. Eventually, in an effort to set the record straight, a debate was set for September 1864 in Bath, but Speke's accidental death by shooting allowed Burton's account to stand.

Carnochan gives a “close reading” to the published accounts of the joint African expedition of Burton and Speke in 1857–59, and in an effort to determine the validity of Burton's complaint about the inadequacy of Speke's Somali journal, Carnochan compares several passages. He shows that while Speke's journal was uneven, it was not so incoherent as Burton claimed. Burton created, according to Carnochan, an undeniably smoother and more sophisticated document and at the same time subtly undermined Speke's skill as an explorer. It is likely that Burton's opinions reveal more about his competitiveness than about the actual composition, and this raises questions as to his personal and intellectual honesty. In Burton's biography, Isabel Burton quotes verbatim, despite a thirty-year lapse, the “broken promise” conversation in which Speke promised Burton not to approach the Royal Geographic Society on his own. Subsequent biographers accepted Burton's report unhesitatingly with varying degrees of partisanship.

Carnochan makes some interesting deductions from the characters of the two men and extrapolates from their actions a continuation of the age-old animosity between France and England. Even though both were English, Burton was an internationalist with a record of defying authority and a pattern of aggressive self-promotion through his travel books. Speke, however, was the quintessential English country gentleman, but he was also Anglo-Indian, with colonial attitudes and habits that grated on Burton. Though polite and courteous, he was a man who could be stubborn, persistent, and emotional if he believed himself or another wronged. In his “close reading,” Carnochan makes clear Speke's inability to express opposition to events that offended him. Instead, Speke used published articles and personal correspondence to do so. The rewritten journal upset him, as did Burton's failure to pay his guides, as well as reports that John Petherick, the British consul at Khartoum, was engaged in the slave trade (the trade that Britain officially ended in 1838). Carnochan's analysis leaves little doubt as to the innate complexity of the characters of both explorers and their sharply contrasting worldviews.

Buttressed by the new evidence from Speke's addendum to What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile, Carnochan questions the reliability of the historical record as well as the nature of historical truth. On-the-spot records and the memory of events sometimes differ, but in the nineteenth century “truth” often rested on the reputation of the explorer. Carnochan's argument is nuanced and careful, the new evidence allowing a more complete study of the controversy. He suggests that the case against Speke is “unproven.”

Without doubt, future historians will delve into the archives and research the “visions” correspondence of Speke, referred to by Sir Roderick Muchison, president of the Royal Geographic Society, as well as the correspondence before and during the second expedition. In any event, this work is limited to a “literary” comparison of the published record. Its strength lies in the uncovering of new material that clarifies Speke's experience and in the fuller interpretation of the famous disagreement. This study is discerning and insightful, and history undergraduates will find it irresistible.