YANKEE KINGDOM.

By Ralph Nading Hill '39. New York: Harper, 1960. 338 pp. $5.95.

The latest addition to the new series on the Regions of America sets a high standard for the volumes to come and fully lives up to Mr. Hill's earlier writings. It does have one real flaw - it lends easily and comes back hard. For one reason or another I received two copies, started to read one, and lost both to friends who insisted they wanted to read Yankee Kingdom. To be sure I had told them how interesting it was, but I still had to find a copy to read for review. It is recommended to all who know that New Hampshire and Vermont, as the last refuges of the old America, are the best states in the Union, and also to those who agree with Arnold Toynbee, that they are of use only as scenic resorts for the lovers of nature or antique shops. Since these two groups include all Americans, I predict a brisk sale - although Toynbee of course was wrong.

It should be said at once that this is not a history, although it deals with history. It is an attempt, and a successful one, to explain how the people of the two states got the way they are, and how they have influenced the rest of the United States, for all of its history. It tells of the geography, of how people made a living, of their ideas, of their way of life - all illustrated by people who lived here and did things, and, some of them, went west to the advantage of that part of the country. It does overstress Vermont — no citizen of New Hampshire can wholly believe Vermont has much history of its own, or accept the notion that Vermont (p. 263) has traditions as significant, or praise St. Gauden's Cornish because (p. 268) it lies in the shadow of a Vermont mountain. It does, also, remind the Yankee reader of Aunt Hattie's attic, in that you never know what the next page, or trunk, will contain. But that is a good Yankee characteristic, to be defended because the total is full of meaning. This is not a simple region, of simple people, easy to describe. It has a long history, during which lots of things changed, and some, fortunately, did not.

Yankee Kingdom is full of interest, and full of things to think about today, when so much attention is being paid to the meaning, and the future, of America.