Just why Albert J. Nock saw fit to inflict his "essay" upon Georgeists, and at this time in particular, is more than we can guess. It may be he thinks the followers of Henry George need to be goaded into action or "broadened" into using some improved propaganda. We infer that he has some improvement in mind, as his book is bearishly critical of Henry George and of everything connected with the Georgeist movement.

Yet, in three or four paragraphs scattered through this book, he gives George unstinted praise and in the latter part of the last chapter he seems to realize that he has overdone adverse criticism and, with a flourish akin to death-bed repentance, polishes the essay to a good ending.

As a prerequisite for reading this book one should brush up on Dickens and in particular read David Copperfield. Special attention should be paid to the character known as Murdstone. Dicken's characters are always sharply drawn but here is one, drawn to utter unreality, which Nock sees fit to use as a basis of what he calls Murdstone or Murdstonian philosophy. Moreover, throughout the book he uses this idea to stigmatize persons, places and conditions and this includes Philadelphia in the year 1839 (the year of George's birth) and the George family as typical of society in Philadelphia at that time. The selection of Murdstone for his purpose must have been the result of a search to find the most reprehensible character possible to overdraw his own picture. He is not content to inflict this Murdstonian surrounding upon George at birth but fastens it on him throughout his life. Yet, in his preface, he says: "Here you have a man who is one of the first half-dozen of the world's creative geniuses in social philosophy."

From the "magnificent" heights of this civilization of 1939 Nock surveys the "Murdstonian" of a century earlier and his opprobrium falls on the George family. Why? They were "poor," a very questionable conclusion and at best only an inference, because the family income in dollars and cents was small or would be considered small now. They were regular attendants of the Episcopal Church and the diary of the youthful Henry George even up to his eighteenth year, mentions his attendance at Sunday School. Such depravity! George even went out with the boys and drank beer. That was in the diary also. Either way or any way, with or without the aid of Murdstone, the author with his great ability and facile pen, attempts a case against the George family and Henry George. One thing is certain, he made an exhaustive study of Murdstone.

As far as Henry George is concerned, he has little understanding insight. His criticism of the campaign of '86 and what "George should have known" shows this. Also, George did not go to college, an irreparable omission in 1939, not uncommon a century earlier. Think of what an economist George would have been had he sat under some of the professors! Nor did George choose the right associates, men of standing and reputation (after he had become their equal), preferring men of more modest attainments. In fact, from the author's viewpoint, from his birth George's affairs were not only mismanaged for him but in all he did he seemed to have the faculty of mismanaging for himself. Yet we again quote from John Dewey in the preface, "it would require less than the fingers of the two hands to enumerate those who from Plato down, rank with Henry George among the world's social philosophers."

But throughout the entire essay the reader cannot fail to be impressed! that George had experienced life and knew suffering and privation at first hand. Whatever came, he was true to his ideals and to himself.