Books: Backdrop for Atlanta

GONE WITH THE WIND — Margaret Mitchell—Macmillan ($3).

Unlike other cities of the Old South, Atlanta, Ga. was a modern industrial community from the start. Staked out just one hundred years ago as a railroad terminal, it soon grew until four important lines crossed there. Its commercial activity had few attractions to Southerners who were trained to the slower pace of plantations, while its pushing, aggressive, competitive life made it distasteful to the leisured aristocrats of Savannah or Charleston. But as an island of industrialism in the drowsy sea of Southern society, Atlanta attracted dissatisfied spirits who...