The book was written in 1918 before the United States took sufficient interest in the republic to bring about certain epoch-making changes. The United States has since offered the country a loan of five million dollars and with the approval of Great Britain and France and with the request of the Liberian Government has consented to become the sole adviser in Liberian affairs. Since then Hon. C. D. B. King, who became President of Liberia in January 1920, has participated in the world's peace conference and visited Europe and America, where the heads of nations have assured him of deeper interest in Liberia than they have heretofore manifested. This book was written from a point of view decidedly different from that of most writers on Liberia, whose tone is that of "gentle melancholy," descanting "upon the country and the people to whom it belongs as with a pen dipped in sighs." Instead of criticising he has in most cases merely described. Where criticisms have crept in they have been given in a spirit of sympathetic friendship. He finds in the country, therefore, much to admire and praise and an economic situation "which will assuredly bid fair, when normal conditions shall have returned to us once more, to attain to a measure of gratifying expansion and progress." He believes that Liberia will then be in a position "of having her feet placed firmly upon the ladder which should bring her in time to great heights. The author concedes that the rung which Liberia has already reached is not a high one perhaps, "but the way before her seems plain and unmistakable." He believes that the present guidance from the outside guarantees these most sanguine expectations in as much as the foreigners controlling the financial policy of the little republic are hard-working men who have already set the house somewhat in order. This, supplemented by a liberal policy of internal improvements, will result in the prosperity of the whole land. In discussing this phase of the administration of Liberian affairs, the author does not bring out any particular resentment on the part of the natives as to foreign interference. The native officials welcome helpful advice and when not given they sometimes seek it. The author himself came into contact with a number of functionaries who frankly asked him to tell them what he thought of their methods. Except so far as such foreign guidance may bring financial relief, however, it is doubtful that these natives so easily yield to this sort of domination; for many Liberians are to-day endeavoring to get rid of the American loan which they fear may lead to conquest like that in Haiti. On the whole, however, this work comes nearer to the true portraiture of the Liberian situation than most volumes in this field. * * * * * _The United States in Our Own Times, 1865-1920._ By PAUL HAWORTH, Ph.D. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920. Pp. vii, 563.