ying types, many of whom have for several reasons
failed to write real history. Some have not forsaken the controversial
group, not a few have tried to explain away the truth, and others going to
the past with their minds preoccupied have selected only those facts which
support their contentions.

What has this author in question done? In this readable and interesting
work the writer has shown considerable improvement upon historical writing
in this field. She has endeavored to deal not only with the political but
also with the economic and social phases of the history of this period. One
gets a glance at the State before the war, the transition from slavery to
freedom, the problems of labor and tenancy, the commercial revival, the
social readjustment, political reorganization, military rule, State
economy, reorganized Reconstruction, agriculture, education, the
administration of justice, the Ku Klux disorder, and the restoration of
home rule.

This research leads the author to conclude that the seven years of the
history of the State from 1865 to 1872 marked only the beginning of the
social and economic transformation that has taken place since the war. This
upheaval broke up the large plantation system, removed from power the
"slave oligarchy," and exalted the yeomanry of moderate means, the
uplanders now in control in the South. When the Democratic rule replaced
Republicanism "one set of abnormal influences were put at rest," economic
and social problems becoming the all-engrossing topics, and politics a
diversion rather than a matter of self-preservation. The race problem then
aroused began in another age, and not being settled, has been bequeathed to
a later generation. Emancipation itself would have aroused racial
antagonism but Republican Reconstruction increased it a hundred fold. This
was the most enduring contribution of Congressional interference.

Politically Reconstruction in Georgia was a failure. The greatest political
achievement of the period was the enfranchisement of the Negro, but this
was soon undone, the Southern white man having no freedom of choice--"he
had to be a democrat, whether or no." Although establishing the Negro in
freedom the government failed to establish him in political and social
equality with the whites. "But still," says the author, "the race problem
and the cry of Negro! Negro! the slogan of political demagogues who magnify
and distort a very real difficulty in playing upon the