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Walter L. Buenger, Linda English. By All Accounts: General Stores and Community Life in Texas and Indian Territory., The American Historical Review, Volume 118, Issue 5, December 2013, Pages 1532–1533, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/118.5.1532a
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In many ways Linda English has provided those interested in the last third of the nineteenth century with a classic work of social history. She uses purchases and notes recorded in account ledgers from more than thirty stores scattered through Texas and Indian Territory to reflect in separate chapters on questions of class, gender, race, ethnicity, and the connection between life in the vicinity of these stores and the broader national market. English argues that “from the pages of ledgers recorded almost a century and a half ago, there emerges a broad and dynamic account of late-nineteenth-century America” (p. 194). While clearly significant, her snapshots from ledgers exhibit many of the weaknesses of classic social history. Most importantly, English's book lacks a clear sense of change over time from the 1860s to the 1890s, sometimes fails to connect the distinct themes explored in each chapter, and ignores how changing financial conditions and business methods on the national and international levels altered general stores and local life and culture.
