Book Review

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 254 words from this article are provided below; about 446 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.2 | The History Cooperative

South Carolina: A History. By Walter Edgar. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998. xxvi, 716 pp. $39.95, isbn 1-57003-255-6.)

After more than sixty years, South Carolina again has an up-to-date, comprehensive, general history. Beautifully written and solid, South Carolina: A History fills a long-felt gap that is in some ways surprising given the importance many South Carolinians attach to their state's history. Walter Edgar, longtime director of the Institute for Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina, has produced a good summary of most of the modern scholarship on a state whose fortunes have fallen. In the early eighteenth century, South Carolina developed an extremely wealthy, West Indian-like, plantation economy, and its elite class had a central place in revolutionary and antebellum political affairs. All this gave way after the Civil War to a state that is still in nearly last place by most measures of socioeconomic well-being despite improvements in the Sun Belt years. 1

Edgar uses a quotation from the establishing statute for the University of South Carolina, which sought to promote "the good order and the harmony of the whole community," as the theme for his history. He fills the book with evocative use of quotations from primary sources, carefully and honestly cited secondhand from the work of other scholars. Abundant facts and statistics enhance rather than mar Edgar's lively prose. On the whole, the book is remarkably accurate. The map on page 447, however, mistakes the founding dates of South Carolina's ten most recent counties. . . .

There are about 446 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.