Born Again

by Alfred Lawson

The book, "" Born Again "", has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies and hence the text is clear and readable.

344 pages, Paperback

First published February 12, 2007

About the author

Alfred William Lawson was a professional baseball player, manager, and league promoter from 1887 through 1916 and went on to play a pioneering role in the U.S. aircraft industry. He published two early aviation trade journals.

He is frequently cited as the inventor of the airliner and was awarded several of the first air mail contracts, which he ultimately could not fulfill. He founded the Lawson Aircraft Company in Green Bay, Wisconsin, to build military training aircraft and later the Lawson Airplane Company in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to build airliners.

The crash of his ambitious Lawson L-4 "Midnight Liner" during its trial flight takeoff on May 8, 1921, ended his best chance for commercial aviation success.

In 1904 he wrote a novel, Born Again, in which he developed the philosophy which later became Lawsonomy.

Reviews

[R. Ware · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, published in 1904, is very reminiscent of Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (published in 1888). Both authors were born in the 19th century (Lawson in 1869), and both novels are weak as works of dramatic fiction, because each is really a vehicle for a passionately held moral philosophy. Bellamy's was socialism, and his book actually inspired socialism clubs in the United States for a while. Lawson's philosophy includes socialist beliefs so similar to Bellamy's that it seems nearly certain that Lawson had read Bellamy's book. But Lawson's philosophy also includes a strange mish-mash of anti-religion, virulent vegetarianism, and reincarnation. Lawson undertook to duplicate the success of Bellamy's book, naming his philosophy "Lawsonomy", and actually succeeding in attracting a small number of adherents.

A sizeable section of Born Again consists of one character explaining Lawson's ideas to another character, just as in Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (though the latter book has much less plot to balance the preaching). And so, I must urge the reader to persist through the preaching, because the rest of the book consists of melodrama of a very 19th century character (if you like that sort of thing).

Wikipedia informs us that Lawson was quite the Renaissance man: he played in major league baseball in 1890 (for the Boston Beaneaters and the Pittsburgh Alleghenys), and the minor league until 1895; he founded an aircraft company in 1917, and established the first commercial airline in 1919, actually inventing the word "airline"; and he founded the University of Lawsonomy in Des Moines in 1943 (it lasted 11 years).

[Ken · Rating 1 out of 5]

While Alfred Lawson did build and fly the first passenger plane he was an ego-maniac. It is shown is this book.