the greater social tendencies of
the _post-bellum_ period had become evident during the decade just
preceding the war. For this reason, the author reaches back into the
midst of the conflict to take up the thread of his narrative. The
economic conditions and changes of 1861 to 1865 are therefore treated in
connection with the great issues of the seventies and eighties--the
protective tariff and "big business." The money question, railway
regulation, corruption in public affairs, never absent from our national
life, are the chief themes of Professor Paxson's book. But while the
_motif_ of the volume is prosperity, business success, and commercial
expansion, space has been found for sympathetic accounts of the
dominating personalities of the time,--for Blaine and Cleveland; for
Bryan, Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson. And as is fitting, the leaders of
the industrial and intellectual interests of the time also receive
attention.

Of closer personal and scholarly interest to Professor Paxson is the
subject of the growth and development of the Rocky Mountain States:
Far-Western railway-building, mining, cattle-raising, and the
establishment of government agencies for the conservation of the
national resources. While the older and dangerous sectionalism seems to
be forever past, the special interests of the Far West, as shown in this
work, still lend color to a new sectionalism which sometimes threatens
the old political party habits; witness the contest of 1908-12 and the
troubles between California and Japan. And here Professor Paxson
challenges attention by his treatment of the results of the
Spanish-American War, the imperialism which brought to the United States
the control of the Philippines, and made the isolated and somewhat
provincial country of Blaine and Cleveland a world-power, with interests
in the Pacific and a potential voice in the final destiny of China.

Such have been the problems and the aims of the writers of these four
short volumes. In order to visualize the main topics discussed, resort
has been made to the making of maps, simple drawings intended to show at
the different crises just where, or how important, were the decisive
factors. This is a feature which, it is thought, will please both lay
and professional readers. Certainly the making of these maps was no
small part of the work of each author, and in most instances they are
entirely original and made from data not hitherto used in this way; for
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