“Mr Rhodes’s new eighth volume is not a fair continuation of his memorable five volumes on the Civil war, or even of the sixth and seventh in which he gave a partial picture of the next dozen years. Its abbreviated scale of treatment affects both contents and manner of presentation. Rarely do the related facts in this volume appear to have meaning or to be parts of a coherent structure.... Stopping short of McKinley’s inauguration, he fails to show the foundations of the silver movement and the Populist party, with the result that his picture of the second Cleveland term lacks its background. Yet he fails also to explain the emergence of the tariff issue and the identification of the Republican party with it, although these facts are vital to the period of his choice. Mr Rhodes has probably not broadened his historical repute by this volume, but he has not ceased to be sagacious along the lines of his experience and attainment.” F: L. Paxson
+ − − Am Hist R 25:525 Ap ’20 1050w
“The author’s impartiality is little short of miraculous. South and North can read him on the Civil war without great irritation.”
+ Ath p273 Ag 27 ’20 150w + Booklist 16:200 Mr ’20
“If the most recent volume of the ‘History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley, 1877–96’ is of less importance than those which preceded it, this is not due to any shortcomings on the part of the author. Dr Rhodes shows the same robust good sense, severe impartiality, and scrupulous accuracy which have secured him his position among American historians.” H. E. E.
+ Eng Hist R 35:476 Jl ’20 130w
“This volume is of the same general character as the preceding volumes and with one possible exception, deserves to rank with them. While the style is not brilliant, it affords easy, sometimes even attractive reading. Yet, for all that, the student of our recent history will close the book with disappointment, a disappointment due to the feeling that the author has failed to show a discriminating sense of proportion. On the topics discussed the author, in most cases, can hardly be said to have touched the bottom. The treatment of industrial unrest falls far below chapter IV of his earlier work, dealing with slavery.” D: Y. Thomas
+ − Mississippi Valley Hist R 7:84 Je ’20 600w
“It seems invidious to speak in any tone of disparagement of a work of Mr James Ford Rhodes, who has given us the classic interpretation of our history from the compromise of 1850 to the close of the reconstruction period. And yet competent judges must feel grieved that the ‘History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley’ is added, as an eighth volume, to the classic seven. It is as thin as the lean kine that followed the seven fat ones in Pharoah’s dream.”
− + Nation 110:805 Je 12 ’20 350w + Spec 124:624 My 8 ’20 250w