flict between rival economic, social, and political interests. In many of these the institution of slavery was directly or indirectly concerned. In general, the scope of Professor Patterson's book may be indicated by his chapter headings. The first is a brief summary of the status of the negro in North Carolina before 1790 and in the territory which became Tennessee in 1796. The others deal with the legal status of the slave in Tennessee, 1796-1865; the economics of slavery in Tennessee; anti-slavery societies; religious and social aspects of slavery; the legal status of the free negro; and a final one entitled "Abolition" which is concerned primarily with legal methods of manumission, the early anti-slavery movement, and the legislative reaction to the northern abolitionist agitation. Despite the dates in the title, there is no discussion of conditions during the Civil War. The author's interest seems to have been chiefly in the legal status of the negro, slave or free. The development of the legal code is very well traced, but not enough evidence is produced of its actual operation. It is well known that the tendency everywhere was for the letter of the law to be much more severe than its application to the slave. The material in the chapter on the economics of slavery is too limited to be very convincing. The fact that selected planters in Middle and West Tennessee were prosperous at stated times does not prove that all their neighbors or that they themselves were habitually successful. We know that in equally good cotton lands further south planters were frequently face to face with ruin because of crop failures or low prices. We know also that grain and stockgrowing with high-priced negro labor was generally unprofitable elsewhere, and we should like to know more about how the Tennessee farmer managed it. It is not clear why the chapters on antislavery societies and abolition are so widely separated. The change in attitude of the churches, especially the more populous, is well exhibited. Here, as elsewhere, the democratic pioneer churchmen, having no slaves, abhorred the institution, while their children, after acquiring wealth, embraced it with pious ardor. Nowhere does the author more than hint at the political and sectional conflicts which attended the development of the slave code or the early emancipation movement, except that he indicates that the early anti-slavery men were chiefly in East Tennessee. There are but few statements of fact that can be questioned. It seems doubtful that the changes in the status of the slave in judicial procedure that is, in denying him the right to testify in cases involving white persons-were due to racial prejudice (pp. 24, 32). There were too many other factors inherent in his condition which must have counted even more heavily than this one. In the statement, a common assertion by the way, that slavery produced aristocracy and social classification (p. 63), the author seems to overlook the fact that capitalism everywhere does that. The slave plan tation was essentially a capitalistic enterprise and slave-holding was as much a result as a cause of the accumulation of wealth. There is a useful bibliogrphy at the end of the work and a few pages of appendices, more or less statistical. There is no index, which to this reviewer is always unpardonable if the book is intended for reference. This lack is partly made good by a full table of contents. The book will be useful as a brief compendium of facts concerning an interesting institution in an important region. CHAS. W. RAMSDELL. University of Texas. MUNRO, WM. BENNETT. (New York: Municipal Government and Administration. The Macmillan Company, 1923. 2 Volumes, Pp. xii, 459, 517.) Every teacher of municipal government will welcome the appearance of this work by Professor Munro. It is an enormous help as a text for the teaching of a comprehensive course in municipal government and administration. Strictly speaking it is not wholly a new work, but in good part a revision of the earlier two volumes by the same author, the Government of American Cities and Principles and Methods of Municipal Administration. But while a large part of the new work contains the same material, brought up to date, as is found in the other two volumes mentioned, there are some additions which increase the value of the work very considerably. There is, for instance, a generally long division in Volume I on the evolution of the city which gives a brief but helpful survey of city development in general with special reference to the United States. In Volume II, dealing with administration, the scope of the earlier book on Principles and Methods of Municipal Administration has been very materially increased by the addition of the important topics of public health, social welfare, and public utilities, the absence of which in the former general treatise constituted a very serious defect. It may be questioned whether the general title of Municipal Government and Administration is justified by the attention devoted in the work to the municipal institutions and practices of countries other than the United States. There are numerous references to England, France, and Germany, but they are extremely brief and certainly not adequate for a work attempting to deal with the government of municipalities in those countries. A more accurate title therefore would probably have been Municipal Government and Administration in the United States, with some reference to the principal countries of Europe. However, that is perhaps an unimportant detail and does not in any sense detract from the value of the book as a text in the courses in municipal government ordinarily given in our universities and colleges. HERMAN G. JAMES. University of Texas. HOLCOMBE, A. N. The Foundation of the Modern Commonwealth. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1923. Pp. 491.) Practically all of the studies in the field of political science by Americans have dealt with descriptive or comparative government, or have gone to the other extreme and treated problems of political thought in vacuo. The fact that these same political theories were developed to oppose or defend certain laws or institutions has not deterred American writers from treating them as if they were the product of closet philosophers and would surely perish if exposed to the biting air of controversial politics. Professor Holcombe has, therefore, performed no small service to students of political thought and of contemporary government by treating the fundamental problems of popular government in a realistic, yet philosophical manner. The central purpose of the work is "to state the problem of government, believing that a fair statement of the problem is a least the beginning of its solution...this book is only an introduction to the study of the science of government." After an introductory survey of the nature and problems of the modern commonwealth, he takes up such problems as church and state, nationalism, the struggle of classes, justice, liberty, and the reign of law. Ever keeping before the reader the central questions involved in each general problem, the author seeks to present everything of value which political thinkers of the past have contributed to their solution. Not only has he given valuable critical estimates of the worth of the contributions of past theorists, but he has also demonstrated a keen insight of his own, an insight that can at least aid us in reaching a conclusion concerning the paths along which a solution of the problems must proceed. However, the author has intentionally kept himself in the background throughout, to the end that he might present a scientific statement of the problems with which he is dealing. The bibliographical notes which follow each chapter and the excellent index add to its usefulness as a text for college classes in government. B. F. WRIGHT, JR. University of Texas. MCDONALD, WILLIAM. Three Centuries of American Democracy. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1923. Pp. 346.) The author's purpose in writing this volume is to give the reader who may not have time for extensive reading a knowledge of the "main facts and the formative influences in the growth of the United States as a democratic nation." The limits of the volume necessitate a terse treatment of our history and make impossible the inclusion of any other than the most general information. Except for the final chapter on Politics and the American Mind, there is apparently no attempt in presenting a fresh point of view. The chief point of excellence in the volume is a pleasing literary style and a ability to give brief but apt characterizations of American politicians and statesmen. Unfortunately the work is marred by several errors of fact and typography. The bibliography, arranged by chapters, presents a limited but well selected list of authorities. University of Arkansas. THEODORE G. GRONERT. Modern Europe. (New York: HAYES, C. J. H. AND MOON, P. T. The Macmillan Company, 1923. Of the making of many books on modern European history there is no end. Nevertheless, the authors of this volume have presented this well covered field from a point of view which is different from that of any comprehensive one volume work in this field. This is evidenced by the brief introduction dealing with the value, unity, and continuity of history, and by the emphasis placed upon the development of social, economic, and political democracy. That democracy is not an end in itself, the authors make plain when they say that "democratic government will be as wise and as beneficent, or as unwise and corrupt as we make it." Valuable helps of various kinds have been included. The illustrations and maps are well selected and appropriate. At the end of each chapter review questions, special topics, and references to books dealing with the period under discussion are selectively arranged; and to aid in the more effective mastery of the subject-matter of the text and as a guide in other reading, the authors have prepared a pamphlet containing a syllabus and other helps. Texas Women's College. WILLIAM STUART. KOHLSAAT, H. H., From McKinley to Harding. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1923. Pp. 235.) This is an entertaining little volume of personal recollections of recent presidents of the United States by a successful Chicago newspaper publisher, who has evently enjoyed an intimate acquaintance with many of the most prominent Americans of the last thirty years. The book contains forty-six chapters of four or five pages each, most of them being short articles, which first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. Mr. Kohlsaat held the important office of "brutal friend" under McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, and Harding. If we are to believe his own statement, he has had a very influential part in the determination of many important policies. The correspondence which he gives indicates that he has been held in esteem by these presidents and other political leaders, and that his advice was welcomed and sometime followed by them. This is, of course, not formal history, but it is a volume which will be diverting to anyone interested in political personalities. Trinity University. WILLIAM C. GUESS. BOWERS, CLAUDE G., The Party Battles of the Jacksonian Period. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1922. Pp. xix, 480.) Mr. Bowers has rendered a real service to the general reader and especially to the students in re-creating this important period of American democracy with its social and dramatic character fully delineated. The chapter on Washington Society of the Thirties is exceedingly illuminating—a country town situated in a swamp, pregnant with fevers, pneumonia, influenza, and cholera, is graphically pictured as the scene of the flappings of an aristocratic society as well as that of the most dramatic and significant political battles in American politics. It was in these days that the masses first gained control of their government. The famous Jackson-Crawford-Calhoun controversy, as well as the "Peggy" Eaton episode, is analyzed with singular aptitude and clearness; a dispute that ended in Jackson's breaking with Calhoun and championing Van Buren as the heir apparent. The character sketches throughout are as romantic as those of Dumas, yet as truly historical as those of Plutarch; men like Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Crawford, Biddle, Benton, Edward Livingston, and John Marshall are made to appear as real politicians-ambitious, scheming and intriguing. It is thoroughly satisfying in the respect of being a study of practical politics. It is not to be undstood that the true historical or scientific spirit has been sacrificed by the introduction of these literary and artistic features. It is, on the other hand, a copiously documented treatise, and the quotations, references, and allusions indicate the prodigious amount of work that was necessary to produce this rare combination of the literary and the historical, the artistic and the scholarly. C. P. PATTERSON. University of Texas. Teachers and students alike will welcome the 7th Edition of Lawrence's Principles of International Law, (D. C. Heath & Co.) of which Percy H. Winfield, of Trinity College, Cambridge, is the editor. It was no small task to revise the 6th Edition, which appeared in 1913, but the work has been exceptionally well done. With Higgins' 7th Edition of Hall and Roxburgh's 3rd Edition of Oppenheim with which to compete, the defense of the irenic views of the venerated rector of Upton Lovell was not easy, nor, in some instances, possible. Some assistance was rendered by the publication in 1918 of Lawrence's Society of Nations, the best portions of which have been included in the present revision. It has been the new editor's main task to reconcile the decisions of British Prize Courts with the more liberal views held by the old master—a task to be approached with trepidation. Winfield has borrowed heavily from the latest cases and the best authorities, such as Garner's International Law and the World War (1920). and Fauchille's Droit International Public (1921) to show the changes |