This is an extraordinary book. In the first place it
is a vivid, vigorous, and brief history of the Confederacy, written with sonic superfluous repetition, but no minor sentimentalities. It treats the question of the Civil War from an impartial and comprehensive standpoint, and gives a genuinely illuminating account of Davis as a man and as President of the Confederacy. But the extraordinary part of the book is that which is not strictly comprehended in the history of events. As if to prove the impossibility of accomplishing what he very nearly achieves, that is, an unbiassed history, the author has fur- bished out his account with the all-enveloping cloak of a supreme sentimentality. He has, in other words, swallowed, hook, line and sinker, the Great Nordic Race theory with which the United States has so recently been baited. It is difficult and academic enough to determine just exactly what constitutes the Nordic race. The theory of its supremacy or its potential supremacy is to say the least a highly debatable one. Mu& more open to question are the exact social quali- ties and tendencies which are supposed to be the exclusive property of this divine abstraction. Yet Mr. kckenrode has unhesitatingly left off being a scientific historical investigator long enough to take on the dogmas of Mr. Madison Grant, and to elevate The Passing of the Great Race into a mystical revela- tion. He sees, indeed, in the struggle between the North and the South a struggle between the last great stronghold and empirical hope of the Nordics represented by the South, and the trivial though industrial non-Nordics of the North. He bemoans the lbss of -what might have been. But he recovers his balance sufficiently to admit that even so, the World may be better in the futtrie than it has been in the past.
Previous page
