University of Virginia Library

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THE UNITED STATES.

AN OUTLINE OF POLITICAL HISTORY, 1492–1871.
BY
GOLDWIN SMITH, D.C.L.

With Map. Crown 8vo. $2.00.

PRESS COMMENTS.

"Is a literary masterpiece, as readable as a novel, remarkable for its compression
without dryness, and its brilliancy without any rhetorical effort or display. What
American could, with so broad a grasp and so perfect a style, have rehearsed our
political history from Columbus to Grant in 300 duodecimo pages of open type,
or would have manifested greater candor in his judgment of men and events in a
period of four centuries? It is enough to say that no one before Mr. Smith has
attempted the feat, and that he has the field to himself."—The Nation.

"It is a marvel of condensation and lucidity. In no other book is the same field
covered so succinctly and so well. Of the five chapters, the first deals with the
Colonial epoch, the second with the Revolutionary period, the third and fourth
review the history of the Federal Government to the outbreak of the Civil War,
and the fifth depicts the era of rupture and reconstruction. We have marked certain
passages for extract, but the truth is that almost every page is enriched with
striking comments that cause the reader to carefully reconsider, if not to change,
his views of historical persons and events."—New York Sun.

"To say that nothing comparable with this most instructive and enchanting
volume has hitherto come from Professor Smith's pen would perhaps be only
anticipating the judgment of its readers."—Toronto Mail.

"Professor Goldwin Smith always writes with a trenchant pen, but he has never
written anything so incisive in style and so interesting in the points of view taken
and the judgment of men and things as his essay of three hundred pages on the
United States, the scope of which is well described in its sub-title "An Outline of
Political History.' This brilliant comment of a liberal Englishman on the history
and institutions of this country is of the utmost value to Americans, who will not
be repelled by its occasional injustice, but who will be materially helped to a juster
conception of the results of American civilization, and who will be immensely
entertained and interested by the vivacity and freshness with which the comment is
made."—The Outlook.

"We know nothing on the subject at all approaching it in brevity, joined to clearness
and completeness, as an essay, nothing where intellectual disinterestedness so
dominates all things, none where a happy sentence or a striking phrase so effectuaiiv
tells a story which many pages in other hands have in vain sought to tell."—A New York Times.

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