The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 54, July 1950 - April, 1951 Page: 379
544 p. : ill., ports., maps. (some col.) ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Book Reviews
to puzzle the author. For example, "The great majority of south-
ern whites owned very few slaves or none at all. The ruling
planter class was always small" (p. 99) . "Textile mills were largely
the creatures of shipping profits, especially those of Boston. ...
The million-dollar corporation becomes common. More impor-
tant was a group of Boston capitalists, who soon had control over
20 per cent of American spindles, together with railroads and
insurance companies" (p. 122).
The style is easy and the reader enjoys a number of epigram-
matical summaries. For example: "Migration humped forward
like an earthworm and did not do handsprings like an acrobat"
(p. 66). "... No real reformer was a diplomat ..." (p. 292).
A few times, however, these are unkind or untrue: "Southern
prosperity was the Siamese twin of cotton prices, and the planter
watched the price of cotton more closely than he did his own
ever expanding family" (p. 1 oo).
The selected bibliography and abundant footnote references
indicate that more research in the southern and western regions
will need to be done and made more easily accessible before a
book of this type will not appear to be primarily an account of
the region north of the Potomac River and east of Lake Erie.
Texas receives equal treatment with Oregon, and Dr. William
Hogan's The Texas Republic is mentioned as "the best single
volume" for the Texas period. No reference was noted, however,
to Dean Albert B. Moore's History of Alabama, and the old
Northwest must feel slighted, but other books by Riegel supply
much of interest for western history. Within the limits set by
the author, Young America is one of the best of the "decade
books" to date, and the criticisms are only "the glowing pin-
pricks" (p. 56) which fade out in the morning splendor as the
reader watches the various streams of endeavor spread forth in
an enviable pattern of vigorous democracy. In regard to economic
thought, Riegel says:
For the time being, the overwhelming majority of Americans con-
tinued to believe in a free economic world, with the maximum of
opportunity for the individual to become rich. The idea of a society
in which each class fought another class for the largest possible
share of the national income had not as yet emerged (p. 147).379
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 54, July 1950 - April, 1951, periodical, 1951; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101133/m1/491/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.