Blacks in America: Bibliographical Essays (review)

BOOK REVIEWS263 remained untapped and stimulate other historians to raise questions that Johnston has not. Patricia Hickin Virginia State Library Blacks in America: Bibliographical Essays. By James M. McPherson, Laurence B. Holland, James M. Banner, Nancy J. Weiss, Michael D. Bell. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1971. Pp. xxii, 430. $8.95.) For scholars interested in one or more of the disciplines subsumed under "Black Studies," few works are likely to be as indispensable as this volume. The five authors-compilers—three historians and two students of American literature—have expanded bibliographies originally developed for an interdepartmental seminar on "The Negro in America" offered at Princeton in 1966, 1968 and 1970. In the published version, they have arranged more than 4000 titles into 100 topics ranging from "The African Background" to "The Black Panthers" and from "The Figure of the Black in English Renaissance Drama" to "Afro-Americans in Films." Each topic begins with one or more paragraphs presenting essential factual or descriptive information, followed by further commentary —generally historiographical—interwoven into the bibliographical listings themselves. Although the authors maintain that their work combines narration with interpretation, they are clearly more successful with the second task. Moreover, many readers will quibble with particular judgments or wish that certain topics were more fully developed. (For instance, Africanists may feel they have been given half-a-loaf, while those historians interested in the antebellum black experience in Canada may also be disappointed. ) Despite these caveats, this volume is immensely useful. The sheer utility of these essays, however, raises important questions: Should five talented scholars (aided by several others) give their time and abilities to compiling and perhaps later up-dating such a work? Would it not be feasible for a bibliographical endeavor of this sort to be computerized by developing a system which would absorb new works as they are published while continuing to store annotated information on older material? Until such a system is established, further editions of Blacks in America will be imperative. Floyd J. Miller Hiram College Finance and Economic Development in the Old South: Louisiana Banking, 1804-1861. By George D. Green. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972. Pp. xiii, 268. $8.75.) Most historians do not take great delight in reading works in economic ...