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BOOK REVIEWS79 One is left wondering whether so mindless and self-deluded a society, whose defense of its economic and social values vitiated those among its intellectuals whom it did not in fact expel, could by any means have avoided the irrational plunge into hopeless civil war. At the fateful hour the southern mind was represented by William L. Yancey, "the voice of emotion"—or of neurosis, as Eaton's sketch of his fitful career suggests. That is not to say that the northern mind of the time was of a much higher grade of excellence, except in not being doggedly committed to one peculiar economic and social institution. But that is not Professor Eaton's subject, and his sympathetic study of the mind of the Old South presents a truer indictment than any abolitionist of the time could have contrived. ixr U- _·. TT-·*_ROWLANn BERTHOFF Washington University Shvery in America: Its Legal History. By Bamett Hollander. (New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1963. Pp. xx, 212. $7.00.) The author, who is identified on the dust jacket as an English attorney and the author of several legal works, opens his book with the question : "I have asked myself, is there possible justification for another book related to 'Slavery'?" This reviewer wishes that the question had been answered with an emphatic negative, for there is little reason for the existence of this book. Its title belies its contents—a hodge-podge of random pieces of information, interspersed with frequently irrelevant long quotations . Indeed, the author seems not unaware of the character of his book for he asserts in his prefatory statement that "this is not a conventional law book, nor a 'History Book' qua History." Just what it is, is difficult to say. Chapter II is a chronology of events and statistics, in which the author seems to have relied on the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Encyclopedia of American History. Chapter III discusses, among other things, the adoption of the Declaration of Independence and quotes the entire document. Long quotations are also provided from various treaties and statutes with almost no explanatory statements. In the chapter on state court cases prior to secession are quotations drawn from the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences dealing with plantation life and the sex life of the slave. The chapter on "The War (1861-1865)" is, aside from a brief chronology, devoted almost completely to reprinting several of Lincoln's speeches and statements, including his First Inaugural Address, the Gettysburg Address, and the Proclamation of Amnesty, December 8, 1863. Such examples will suffice. To say more would be to give the book more consideration than it deserves. What the author and the publisher (who must share the responsibility) hoped to achieve by this book is very puzzling. , ...Robert W. Tohannsen University of Illinois ...

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