f view and its
valuable research. This volume is an unusual contribution in this
field. It is an historical treatise, a study in economic progress and
a survey of contemporary movements. As suggested by its title, the
book examines with scholarly comprehension the continued migrations of
the nineteenth century. The point of view which the volume presents is
that of the new historical school, which holds that movements of the
present have their roots in the past; and the present may not be
properly understood without comprehending the foundations of the past.
The book is replete with facts organized and interpreted with a
scientific spirit, and the discussions are modern and scholarly.

After reading the book one ceases to speak of "a" migration, or of
"the" migration, for Negro migration ceases to be a new development.
It becomes an old movement, begun a century ago, but now heightened
and intensified by the factors growing out of the World War. The
author in his preface especially disclaims any distinctly new
contribution of fact. The specific value of the volume rests then in
its collection of isolated historical data culled from many known
sources, and its presentation of a new vantage ground from which the
whole subject may be regarded. An introductory section on the
migrations at the close of the eighteenth century and in the opening
years of the nineteenth century leads to the main chapters which
follow under the headings: A Transplantation to the North; Fighting it
out on Free Soil; Colonization as a Remedy for Migration; The
Successful Migrant; Confusing Movements; The Exodus to the West; The
Migration of the Talented Tenth, and The Exodus during the World War.

In the discussion of the Successful Migrant much information is given
us of individuals who succeeded by sheer grit in making their way to
freedom, and in some cases in building neat fortunes for themselves
and their families. The charge that the Negro appears to be naturally
migratory, an assertion which comes to light in recent studies in
economic progress, is declared untrue. Dr. Woodson asserts that "this
impression is often received by persons who hear of the thousands of
Negroes who move from one place to another from year to year because
of the desire to improve their unhappy condition. In this there is no
tendency to migrate but an urgent need to escape undesirable
conditions. In fact, one of the American Negroes' greatest
shortcomings is that