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A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930, by Stewart E. ToL.ay and E. M. Beck. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1995. 297 pp. $49.95 cloth. ISBN: 0-252-02127-4. $19.95 paper. ISBN: 0-252-06413-5.
For over a decade, Tolnay and Beck have sought to explain how and why lynching became institutionalized in the South by studying the geographic and temporal distributions of these events. This fine volume integrates several of those earlier studies and addresses an audience beyond that of academic journals. It combines statistical analysis with narrative accounts to provide an examination that is at once analytically sophisticated and eminently readable.
Concentrating on 10 states in the American South, Tolnay and Beck identify key covariates of 1,200 lynchings spread over 30 years. Their analysis confirms many of the established generalizations: for example,...