The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02
Literary Lights and Shadobs
BY s. MAYS BALL.

American Independence" are really a
 continuation, more complete discussion | or the revolution than that contained in MT. Fishers previous work, "The True
 History of the American Revolution.L In
 these two volumes here discussed Mir.
 Fisher attempts to prove more clearly
 than ever that the revolution was not the work of a war or of & decade, but of a
 long evolution of thought experience and | events; that 1t was not contest between
 dragon and fairy settled once and
 for all in favor of the fairyi that 1t was not mere accidental mistake on the i part of England that she would not re- | peat contest mistakenly conducted
 through Il years of argument and dplo-
 macy and eight years of war by the King
 alone against the wishes of the English | people; but that 1t was entered upon by
 the English nation as deliberately and in- telligently as any other imperial expan-
 sion they have ever undertaken and upon
 principles which for them are unchange-
 able; and that 1t was long uncertain struggle between the two opposing ideas | of colonial empire and separate independ- | ence, both of which are still powerful in | the world and preparing for future strug- l gles.
 MT. Fisher says that 1t Is passing strange that so much scholarly and ex- celent work should have been done in collecting evidence in regard to the rev. olutionary war period, and yet so little use of 1t should be made in writing gen. eral histories. It has been the work of MT. Fisher to bring together in his two volumes "The Struggle for American In- dependence" the greater part of the evi- dence from all sides of the question so that the investigator, student and reader of the present and future will not have to search for 1t at random.
 MT. Fishers work is remarkably well done. The two volumes are very interest ing; new lights have been thrown on the loyalist side of the revolutionary war: both sides of the question have been dis
 cussed calmly and fairly, and Mir. Fishers books are such as should be read by all
 students, lovers of fairness and searchers
 after truth in history The books are handsomely produced by the Lippincotts AS we now have after 122 years a fair statement of both sides of the reyolu- tionary war-will 1t be 122 years after the civil war before the south has it's side fairly presented?
 Socialism; Positive and Negative," by Robert Rives La Monte. Charles H. Kerr Co.)
 It will not be very easy task for the
 
 der to meet the logical arguments of Rob- ert Rtves La Monte in his volume, "So- cialism, Positive and Negative" for it evidently Is the result of deep sociological research. and MT. La Monte's conclu- sions drawn therefrom. In an interest,"
 ing manner, and with precision, Mr. La Monte describes the trend of the forces that he says are irreslstibly driving hu-
 man society into more practical system fho.. At@ tenn wherein this author says all its units will be related to each other on the basis
 of economic justice and the noble ethical
 life, MT. La Monte insists, will develop from it. In supporting his position, backed, he says, by the logical conclu- sions attained by science, economic de- veopment and the historical evolution of mankind, MT. La Monte proceeds to pro-
 claim to the world that nothing short of the wished-for cooperative common
 wealth will ameliorate the so-called
 chaotic conditions of the present order of society.
 In the several chapters of his book MT. Le Monte discusses the following sub- jects: Science and Materialism," divided into three parts-first, "The Materialistic Conception of History" second, ''The Law of Surplus Value," third, "The Class Struggle" also he goes into "Maxism and Ethics, "The Nihilism of Socialism," 'The Biogenetic Laws and his conclusions derived therefrom. If all the socialists could only 'get to- gether," agree on some one thing, we
 might in time arrive at what the ultimate scheme of socialism Is or means to be- MT. Le Monte's book is one of the clear est, most concise books written on the subject and will be found interesting by those who wish to study this really i'm portant question.
 "Vigorous Daunt, Billionaire," by Am- prose Pratt. (R. F. Fenno & Co.) MT. Ambrose Pratt wrote book last year called "The Counterstroke," for which effusion there was hardly any ex- cuse at all Of course when such books appear the only way any of us (except the book reviewers) can "get even" with the author, Is to decline to read their productions. Even so, that doesn't even