The man with a job has wondered how long the job would last. Young people have come to wonder what would be their lot when they came to old age.

The civilization of the past hundred years, with its startling industrial changes, has tended more and more to make life insecure.

Reading this is an exciting experience.Today a hope of many years' standing is in large part fulfilled. Inevitably, there has been sharply selective use of material throughout:- the American people in their development, socially, politically, economically, industrially, hre stressed and individuals underplayed the ile of moral ideas gets perhaps more emphasis than customarily, though economic and social forces are not minimized the positive achievements of Americans are not measured alone in standard-of-living symbols - the national character is what really emerges from these pages. Some little known facts throw new light on what is happening today. Perhaps the most important chapter in the book, viewed, at this moment in our history, is Chapter VIII -awn Without where he sums up the effect of the Reconstruction period in the place of the Negro, not only in the South but the North. Out of each comes a new America, and Professor Degler traces the emerging factors, the significant changes- and behind all, the continuity of tradition, basically conservative. The areas of development are threefold: the War of Independence, the War for the Nation and the Great Depression. Some of our preconceptions become outmoded shibboleths probably other take their place. The chronology and the biography of our history are here of small moment for these one needs a systematic orderly approach as groundwork. The past is seen through the lens of the present and events, their causes and results, emerge in different relationship and with different emphases. Here is a challenging new way to approach American history and this reader found the book stimulating, provocative and revealing as an interpretation of the social forces in the building of a nation.

Out of Our Past by Carl N. Degler