A History of Iowa (review)

78CIVIL WAR HISTORY build the Union would be a mixture of northern capital and southern industry. Unfortunately not enough space is available in such a brief review to do justice to the rich variety of the Juhl letters such as the descriptions of Florida which Fleming recognized would become a northern haven, the dismal but valuable coal mines of Tennessee and the rich Alabama iron works which he predicts will someday surpass those of Pennsylvania. Of all the primary accounts of the period recently republished this will stand as one of the most readable and important. Edward K. Eckert St. Bonaventure University A History of Iowa. By Leland L. Sage. (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1974.) Leland L. Sage, Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Northern Iowa, has written what amounts to a political history of Iowa. Unlike certain recent histories of other states (e.g. Elwyn B. Robinson 's History of North Dakota) the Sage book is devoid of any over-all theme or interpretation of Iowa history. In the eight chapters that focus on the period from the 1840s to the turn of the twentieth century, Professor Sage covers adequately most of the major political events. Proper attention is paid to the fight for statehood, the rise of the Republican party, events of the Civil War and Reconstruction era and the genesis, development and collapse of the Granger and Populist movements. Sage, however, relies heavily on published secondary accounts, although he often uses the latest and best scholarship. For instance, his discussion of the Civil War in northwestern Iowa is based primarily on Robert H. Jones's The Civil War in the Northwest. Yet, the narrative coverage in these eight chapters is incomplete. Sage, for example, completely ignores other military conflicts that involved Iowans, namely the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection. These are incredible omissions since the Forty-ninth Iowa Volunteers served with distinction in Cuba and the Fifty-first Iowa played a key role in the Philippines. It would be incorrect to suggest that A History of Iowa is of little use to professional historians. Sage has indeed produced something more than a "mugbook" or a children's history; he has penned a convenient and succinct one-volume political history of the Hawkeye state. Still, an interpretative, scholarly political history of Iowa is needed. Moreover, the story of the state's economic, social and intellectual development remains to be told. H. Roger Grant The University of Akron ...