MYTHS AND REALITIES: SOCIETIES OF THE COLONIAL SOUTH.

By Carl Bridenbaugh '25. Louisiana State UniversityPress. 1952. x, 208 pp. $3.25.

With the publication of this volume Carl Bridenbaugh adds another to his rapidly growing list of studies of life in colonial America, the materials for which he had an unusual opportunity to assemble while he was director of the Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, Virginia. The three chapters into which the book is divided were originally presented as the Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History at Louisiana State University. The author's purpose has been to present an accurate and comprehensive picture of life and culture in the South during the years preceding the Revolution and this has naturally necessitated the correction of a good many erroneous impressions concerning the history and institutions of the region in question. The revisionist approach accounts for the somewhat intriguing title of the volume, but it is unlikely that in matters of detail the new viewpoints presented by the author will come as much of a shock to the average reader, whose ideas concerning eighteenth-century America may be somewhat nebulous to begin with.

The basic "myth" which the author has sought to dispel, and with marked success, is the impression that there was before the Revolution any such thing as a unified South, with a homogeneous society and a common culture. The chapters which comprise the book are entitled, respectively, "The Chesapeake Society," "The Carolina Society," and "The Back Settlements." In each area the author recognizes a more or less distinct pattern or way of life, although there was also a surprising diversity within each of the regions described. In fact, variety rather than homogeneity emerges as the principal characteristic of the colonial South as portrayed in these pages.

The geographical, economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of the three principal areas of the South are described with a wealth of detail, illustration, and apt quotation. Professor Bridenbaugh writes in an easy and sometimes racy style and unlike some social historians, always remains master of the innumerable details which constitute his raw material. Few readers can fail to be fascinateby his lively description of the plantation system in the Old Dominion and his account of the urbane and sophisticated business and social activity which centered at Charleston in South Carolina. But the author is first and always a realist and refuses to romanticize his subject. Sound scholarship and an attractive literary style make this volume an outstanding contribution to the history of colonial America. In view of the importance of geographical factors in the author's treatment, the inclusion of one or two maps would have been helpful to the reader.