The Beards carry their classic history of "The Rise of American Civilization" from 1928 down through 1938. As in the two previous volumes, social and cultural progress is traced along with developments in economics and politics. The major portion of the book is devoted to a critique of the New Deal, the foreign policies of which the authors far from approve -- for reasons lucidly set forth in Mr. Beard's " Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels," reviewed below.