28 MAY 1898, Page 24

Thirty Years of American Finance, 1865-1896. By Alexander Dana Noyes.

(G. P. Putnam's Sons )—This book is what it pro- fesses to be, a careful account, without abstract economic dis- cussion, of the series of financial events of the period chosen. The author's view is that the dangerous blunders of the last thirty years have had their origin in imperfect knowledge or mistaken views of past events. He notes that the year 1896 opened a new in- dustrial epoch ; let us hope that war, the parent of financiaL disorder, will not blight the prospect.