* * * * * RECONSTRUCTION IN LOUISIANA. By ELLA LONN, Assistant Professor in Grinnell College. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1919. Pp. 538. Price $3.00 net. Miss Lonn's book is an exhibition of the true scholarly spirit. Her analysis of the situation in Louisiana politics during the period of Reconstruction is most ably executed. She has neglected no source which would throw light upon this very anachronistic epoch. Public documents of all kinds, and especially those which embody the debates in the Senate and assembly of Louisiana have been made to yield interesting testimonies of the passing shows of the years 1867-1876. Not content, however, with these testimonies, she has called to her aid many other sources including the newspapers of the day wherein is displayed popular reaction towards the orgies being indulged in the State House. And thus the reader's mind, by means of most carefully chosen quotations from these records, as if by a lightning flash, is frequently illumined; so that the whole comedy unfolds before the eyes in a most interesting fashion. The book is not only filled with a wealth of detailed information concerning the period, it not only tells the story of political debauchery, ignorance and fraud; but notes also the few shreds of constructive work done by the legislators under the coercion of public opinion. All of these facts are put together in a logical manner and show that the author is not only gifted with keen analytic powers, but is also endowed with a peculiar faculty for organizing and marshalling facts in such a manner as to weave a beautiful mosaic of otherwise widely divergent elements.