JENNINGS, WALTER W. A History of the Economic and Social Progress of the American People. Pp. xiii, 811. Cin cinnati : South-Western Publishing Co., 1937. $3.50

• Author: Roger W. Shugg
• DOI: 10.1177/000271623819700138
• Published date: 01 May 1938
• Date: 01 May 1938
• Subject Matter: Articles

268

not

nearly

enough

afraid)

to

concoct

a

little

series

of

discussions

between

the

knightly

Toombs

on

the

one

side

and

such

Yankee

white

trash

as

Abraham

Lincoln,

William

Lloyd

Garrison,

and

Harriet

Beecher

Stowe

e

on

the

other,

which

must

be

read

to

be

be-

lieved.

All

three

of

the

Northerners

may

have

been

fiends

in

human

form,

as

the

au-

thor

so

wisely

observes,

but

is

it

not

fair

to

assume

that

they

could

hold

up

their

end

in

a

way

which

would

not

disgrace

the

star

zany

of

a

reform

school?

The

trio

were

rogues,

beyond

a

doubt,

but

at

the

very

least

they

were

articulate,

plausible,

per-

suasive

rogues.

When

did the

Devil

ever

rely

on

a

tongue-tied

advocate?

I

am

afraid

the

grave

has

yawned

and

given

up

its

dead

in

vain.

ALPHONSE

B.

MILLER

Philadelphia

JENNINGS,

WALTER

W

. A

History

of

the

Economic

and

Social

Progress

of

the

American

People.

Pp.

xiii,

811.

Cin-

cinnati :

South-Western

Publishing

Co.,

1937.

$3.50.

In

this

textbook,

hopefully

addressed

to

&dquo;the

business

man

and

the

general

reader&dquo;

as

well

as

student

&dquo;beginners,&dquo;

Professor

Jennings

has

expanded

and

added

four

chapters

to

his

Introduction

to

American,

Economic

History

(1928).

The

earlier

work

was

called

by

one

reviewer

a

&dquo;brief

encyclopedia&dquo;

(ANNALS,

CXXXIX:

~11) ;

the

new

work

is

neither

brief

nor

yet

en-

cyclopedic.

It

is

organized

by

topics,

il-

lustrated

with

many

good

charts,

but

weighed

down

by

the

familiar

burden

of

undigested

statistics,

and

somewhat

ani-

mated

by

quotations

from

contemporary

travelers

and

periodicals,

biographical

sketches

of

merchants

and

industrialists,

and

snatches

of

political

history.

This

amazing

assortment

of

a

little

of

everything

brings

the

book

dangerously

close

to

being

much

of

nothing

at

all.

It

is

difficult

to

understand

why

the

book

is

entitled

&dquo;social,&dquo;

in

view

of

the

fact

that

there

are

only

172

pages

on

population,

im-

migration,

social

conditions,

labor,

and

con-

servation,

to

cite

the

chapter

headings,

compared

to

nearly

as

many

on

animal

life

on

the

farm,

municipal

utilities,

lumbering,

mining,

fishing

and

trapping.

Railroads,

from

Stephenson

to

Eastman,

are

stream-

lined

down

to

twenty-nine

pages;

stores-

department,

chain,

mail-order,

and

&dquo;super-

markets&dquo;-run

to

only

ten

less.

The

author

presents

a

bewildering

array

of

facts

which

are

often

neither

critically

selected

nor

fully

interpreted.

There

are

many

dogmatic

opinions

which

approach

the

naive

(e.g.,

pp.

123,

166,

196,

331-32,

414,

666-67,

699,

’~1~) .

The

book

is

full

of

information,

brought

up

to

date

by

fac-

tual

summaries

of

New

Deal

legislation,

but

is

shy

of

understanding.

&dquo;Progress&dquo;

is

un-

derstood

to

mean

&dquo;economic

growth&dquo;;

it

is

impossible

to

convey

a

sense

of

growth,

which

is

organic,

in

a

mechanical

handbook

of

facts.

Without

any

focus,

the

book

be-

gins

with

exploration

and

settlement,

con-

cludes

with

money

and

banking,

and

largely

neglects

the

natural

resources

or

re-

gions,

social

or

mechanical

inventions,

and

economic

interests

or

institutions,

any one

of

which

might

serve

as

a

thread

through

the

maze

of

American

development.

The

student

rarely

has

a

choice

of

texts,

but

the

general

reader

may

well

prefer

those

by

Faulkner,

Kirkland,

or

Shannon.

These

comments

are

not

harsh

in

the

case

of

Professor

Jennings,

because

he

once

wrote

a

significant

essay

on

the

industrial

consequences

of

Jefferson’s

embargo,

which

can

still

be

read

more

profitably

than

this

too

ambitious

work.

Since

publishers

will

not

declare

a

moratorium

on

texts,

and

gen-

erations

of

students

have

been

schooled

to

esteem

and

abhor

them

as

the

repository

of

all

knowledge,

perhaps

the

only

hope

for

the

future

is

that

the

academic

profession

may

exercise

more

restraint

in

writing

them.

They

would

improve

if

done

as

a

scholar’s

last

will

and

testament.

ROGER

W.

SHUGG

Princeton

University

AMBLER,

CHARLES

H.

Francis

H.

Pier-

pont.

Pp.

xiii,

483.

Chapel

Hill:

Uni-

versity

of

North

Carolina

Press,

1937.

$5.00.

Francis

H.

Pierpont

was

one

of

the

ac-

tors-half

heroic,

half

absurd-thrust

upon

the

Civil

War

stage

by

the

strange

legalistic

obsessions

of

the

period.

From

the

found-

ing

of

the

Republic,

our

best

minds

had

concentrated

on

constitutional

quibbling

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