Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/867

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REVIEWS 853

associated with the old regime. And there is room for skepticism on this score ; yet it must be remembered that records of such were seldom put down in black and white, and that most documents of this sort that ever had existence have likely been destroyed. It would be exceedingly difficult to locate papers of this kind in the South or elsewhere today. Possibly some of the court records might offer some such.

But for the darker picture Olmstead, Fanny Kemble, and Harriet Beecher Stowe still remain, and they must be used by the student who desires a complete picture. And as for the middle classes and pioneers, the records of the early Methodist circuit riders, the Baptist backwoods preachers too, may be consulted. Asbury's Journal, in three volumes, is a source of this sort of inestimable value ; and it ought to be a part of any collection of southern source material that is brought together.

Aside from these natural and inevitable limitations. The Docu- mentary History of American Industrial Society, in so far as it deals with the ante-bellum South, is of firstrate importance. It is a work which cannot be overlooked in the future by any class of investigators and it ought speedily to find its way to every good library in the country.

William E. Dodd

The University of Chicago

Religion in the Making: a Study in Biblical Sociology. By Samuel G.

Smith. New York: Macmillan, 1910. Pp. 253.

This book is an introduction to the study of the Bible from the sociological viewpoint. The author, who is a clergyman with a Bible class as well as a professor of sociology, realized after a number of years of alternate separate occupation with each line of his activities, that the sociology could be used to make his Bible-teaching far more fruitful. Hence this work which is fitted for the novice in Bible-study as well as the novice in sociology.

Victor E. Helleberg

The Immigrant Tide — Its Ebb and Flow. By Edward A. Steiner. New York: Revell, 1909. 8vo., pp. 370. $1.50.

This book is neither a statistical nor a scientific treatise. It is frankly in- terpretative. In the first part, the influences of the returned immigrant upon his peasant home and upon his social and national life are described. In the second part, the auhor interprets the attitude of the Slavs, Poles, Jews, and other races toward our ways and institutions. He analyzes the interacting influences. The idea is to "create contacts and not divisions ; to disarm