is to serve any distinct purpose as history, it must be chiefly a history of the campaigns between 1813 and 1815. Sixty pages accordingly carry the reader to 1812, and a short paragraph covers the last years of Blücher's life, from 1815 to 1819. This distribution of space is in itself an interesting comment on Blücher's lack of connection with any thing in Prussian history except battles. These are not to be neglected -least of all in Prussian history-and they may be found fully described with excellent maps in the remaining 260 pages of Dr. Henderson's biography. Of the larger phases of Prussian history and policy in the period no adequate account has been attempted, nor do the brief comments show any thorough comprehension of the problems involved. An appendix of folk-songs of the period bears no vital relation to the purpose of the book.

That social and industrial history can be made as interesting as are chronicles of war and of the activities of kings is attested by George Guest's little volume entitled A Social History of England (London, G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1913; xi, 209 pp.). To compress within the limits of 188 pages the social history of England from prehistoric times down to the present day is of course no small task. To do this in language that children can understand and at the same time to present all of the main elements faithfully and intelligibly is a real achievement. Mr. Guest, who is himself a schoolmaster, can boast of this achievement. He intends his book for use in the secondary schools. It ought speedily to find a place in every school where history of the new variety is being taught.

The Collection de Documents inédits sur l'histoire économique de la Révolution française (see volume xxvi, p. 560, of this magazine) continues its slow but impressive growth. Among the volumes recently published, six are devoted to the cahiers of 1789. These are: volumes iii (1911) and iv (1912) relating to the sénéchaussée of Rennes, edited by MM. Sée and Lesort; volumes ii (1910) and iii (1911) relating to the bailliages of Troyes and Bar-sur-Seine, edited by M. J. J. Vernier ; volumes iii (1911) relating to the bailliages of Sezanne and Châtillonsur-Mare, edited by M. Gustave Laurent; and volume ii (1912) relating to the bailliages of the généralités of Metz and Nancy, edited by Charles Etienne. Something of the diligence of the editors may be gathered from the fact that M. Laurent provides a preface half as long as the text itself, including a study of the economic condition of the district, which is based upon the most painstaking research and extends to more than a hundred pages; or that M. Vernier gives, in his third volume, an exceedingly useful analysis of the cahiers, grouping

the complaints under various heads, such as justice, taxation, manorial rights. Considering how imperfect is the earlier collection of the cahiers and how unsafe the commentaries based upon it, students will turn to the conclusions of the editors with peculiar interest. In one respect, however, these conclusions must be treated with reserve. There is too ready a disposition to picture the circumstances of the peasants in somber colors. "The people suffered cruelly," says M. Vernier. ". . . was anything more needed to reduce them to the most abject misery and to force from them this cry of suffering which all the cahiers echo?" Such views form part of the radical republican creed. It would be heresy to acknowledge that the French peasant enjoyed material comforts and had aspirations quite outside the experience of the German serf. Six other volumes are concerned with the sale of national property. These are: volume iv (1911) relating to the department of the Bouches-du-Rhône, edited by M. Paul Moulin ; volume i (1911) and ii (1912) relating to the department of the Gironde, edited by MM. Marion, Benzacar and Caudrillier; volume i (1912) relating to the district of Sens, edited by Charles Porée ; a volume (1911) relating to the department of the Vosges, edited by M. Léon Schwab ; and a volume (1911) relating to the districts of Rennes and Bain, edited by MM. Guillou and Repillon. The accurate data which is now presented will make it possible to reach a settled decision on some important points. It appears that the middle class participated chiefly in the earlier sales; the peasants, in the later. There were 540 purchasers for the 1154 lots sold in the districts of Rennes and Bain. "Property had been divided and dispersed by the Revolution since very few citizens had bought more than one lot and since most of those buying several had done so for the purpose of reuniting parcels of land which had been divided for the convenience of the auction." It does not appear that the government made any great financial profit in the end. As the editors say with respect to the Gironde "The assignat only too greatly encouraged the sale of national property. It encouraged it to the point of permitting payment with almost nothing and made the state lose almost the whole value." M. Félix Mourlot has brought out volume iii (1910) of the economic documents drawn from the municipal registers of the district of Alençon. MM. Bloch and Tuetey have published (1911) the proceedings and reports of the committee on poverty which was appointed by the National Assembly in 1790 and which occupied itself for over a year with the problem of relieving indigence and with the improvement of prisons and houses of detention. M. Adher's volume (1912) on

:

Le Comité des subsistances de Toulouse shows how that city of 60,000 met the forestallers of grain by purchasing directly and establishing municipal stores. This was in the years 1793-1795, when army requisitions had drawn off much grain and when commerce and manufacture were stagnant. The functions of the committee extended to the finding of employment for the poor. Somewhat similar ground is covered in volume i (1911) of M. Lorain's Les subsistance en céréales dans le district de Chaumont (1788–1796).

Colonial Opposition to Imperial Authority during the French and Indian War (Berkeley, The University Press, 1911; 98 pp.) is the title of a study by Professor Eugene Irving McCormac, which appears as the initial number of the University of California Publications in History. The author shows the importance of the period 1754-1763 as preliminary to the Revolution.

...

Hardly an issue which disturbed the relations between colonies and mother country between the passage of the Stamp Act and the Declaration of Independence was new. The grounds upon which the colonists claimed exemption from British taxation and restrictions in the later period were by no means new; they had been asserted again and again in substantially the same terms during the war with France.

He shows how officials both in England and America were convinced of the need of reorganizing the colonial system, particularly in respect to defense. The greater part of this study is devoted to an examination of the activities of the several colonial assemblies in connection with the war. The author's conclusion is that the colonial administrative system of England was "inadequate and impotent." The one remedy that commended itself to British officialdom was parliamentary control with parliamentary taxation to support it. The attempt to apply this remedy led to the revolt of the colonies. Mr. Beer has shown the importance of the period here dealt with in the history of British colonial policy; Mr. McCormac, taking his stand on American soil, shows its connection with the Revolution.

Many writers of history shun the field of recent events from fear that lack of perspective makes it difficult if not impossible to present the picture accurately and without distortion. In spite of this widely entertained apprehension, Dr. Paul Leland Haworth has ventured in his Reconstruction and Union (New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1912; 255 pp.) to tell the story of the United States from the close of the Civil War through the elections of 1910. merit or demerit of possessing a point of view.

The author has the From the titles of his

two concluding chapters, one might hazard a guess as to how he voted, or at any rate how he did not vote, in the presidential election subsequent to the period of his narrative. Chapter viii, which deals with the years of President McKinley's administration following the war with Spain, is entitled "The Golden Age of Materialism." After referring to the passage of the Dingley Tariff Bill in the House of Representatives through the splendid discipline of the Republicans and under the fostering care of Thomas B. Reed, who was again Czar," the author adds: "Modifications in the further interests of the powers that ruled were made in the more plutocratic Senate. . . . There can be no doubt that the act tended to put American consumers at the mercy of monopolies by rendering foreign competition almost impossible, but that was exactly what many of the framers of the act desired." Of President McKinley he says, after referring to his private virtues: "Yet he was not truly democratic nor did he guard carefully the true interests of democracy. His complaisance towards men of wealth and interests representing wealth and the influence exerted over him by the corruptionist Hanna form blots that time will hardly efface." The period which follows Mr. McKinley's assassination is dealt with in Chapter ix under the title of "The Revolt Against Plutocracy." Throughout the volume the story is racily told; significant events are brought to the foreground and graphically portrayed. It is an entertaining book. Limits of space may account for the fact that assertions are too seldom buttressed by evidence, but can hardly excuse the assurance with which many of the assertions are made. The book does not entirely dismiss the apprehension that the writing of recent history is a dangerous thing.

Of interest to Americans as a political record of ten years of federal government in the antipodes is The First Decade of the Australian Commonwealth (Melbourne, Mason, Firth and M'Cutcheon, 1911; XV 320 pp.). It is a purely parliamentary history that the author, Mr. Henry Gyles Turner, has written, and it deals extensively with parties and ministries, of which latter the infant commonwealth has had no dearth. As one whose theme is the very recent history of his own country, the writer, of course, makes no claim for the finality of his opinions; indeed he modestly places himself among the "hodmen " of literature whose work may not be without value to the philosophic historian. It requires no great discernment to discover that the author is wholly out of sympathy with and deeply distrustful of the Labor Party, which at present appears to control the destinies of Australia. Evidences of inexperience or ignorance or class spirit on the part of

Labor members are presented with ill-concealed satisfaction. The member of Parliament for whose judgments and utterances Mr. Turner has most respect is Mr. Bruce Smith of New South Wales, whose views on social and industrial questions the Labor Party regards as highly reactionary.

Now and then every student of politics and economics feels the need for what are described in newspaper parlance as "trigger-books." A book of this kind is The New International Year-Book, whose volume for 1912 (New York, Dodd, Mead and Company, 1913; 822 pp.) appeared several months ago. The promptness with which its material is made available is usually urged as the chief asset of this publication; but at the same time its articles are reliable and back volumes are not consigned to the waste basket. Considering the scope of the work the treatment of the individual topics is surprisingly comprehensive.

The literature of socialism grows apace in the United States. Recently three volumes well worth perusal have been put forth by socialist writers of established reputation. Two of the books, Morris Hillquit's Socialism Summed Up (New York, The H. K. Fly Company, 1913; 110 pp.) and Allen Benson's The Truth About Socialism (New York, B. N. Huebsch, 1913; 188 pp.) endeavor to set forth clearly and pointedly what the socialist movement in this country really represents and what it has already accomplished. Mr. Benson writes with more spirit than does Mr. Hillquit, and his book radiates more heat, but Mr. Hillquit's work is more unified and reflects a calmer temperament and a saner judgment. The third book, Mr. William English Walling's The Larger Aspects of Socialism (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1913; xxi, 406 pp.), is an ambitious attempt to set forth some of the larger philosophical implications of socialism. To many persons the theories and the ideals of socialism make a strong intellectual and spiritual appeal; and to these Mr. Walling's book will prove deeply interesting. And those who are sceptics, if they have a taste for abstract thought, will relish the opportunity to test Mr. Walling's philosophical interpretations. The scope of his undertaking is too wide to permit any reference here to details, but Mr. Walling's main thesis. can, perhaps, be briefly set forth. This thesis is in short that the whole philosophy of modern science is "socialistic in its bearings" and that in many directions the ultimate goal of modern thought seems to be the same as that toward which the socialist movement itself is going. Mr. Walling's new book is a companion volume to his Socialism As It Is, which dealt with the purely practical aspects of the socialist movement. with equal success.

He now enters upon a more difficult field-but