Book Review: Contemporary History
| DOI | 10.1177/002070205000500116 |
| Author | Joseph S. Roucek |
| Date | 01 March 1950 |
| Published date | 01 March 1950 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book
Reviews
intelligence and
with
enough
force
to
avoid
a
final
holocaust
which
might
well
make
the
Atomic
Age
the
shortest
and the
last
in
the
history
of
civilization."
Bishop's
University,
Lennoxville,
P.Q.,
August
1949.
D.
C.
Masters
CONTEMPORARY
HISTORY.
By
F.
W.
Pick.
1949.
(Oxford:
Pen-
in-Hand
Publishing
Co. 324pp.
10s.
6d.)
The
American
reader,
used
to
the
standard formula
of
textbook,
will
at
first
be
puzzled
by
this
work.
However,
the
work
is
really
a
survey
of
modem
diplomatic
historiography,
followed
by
analyses
of
the European
settlement
of
1919,
the
inter-war
years
and
the
origins
of
the
war
of
1939,
the
German
problem
(from
Stresemann
to
the
Hitler
plot),
Goethe's
influence
on
British
historians, the
Baltic
problems,
Ireland's president,
the problem
of
dependencies,
Portuguese
Africa, and
the
nature
of
nationalism.
So,
what
we
have here
is
not
a
systematic
study
of
contemporary
history,
but
rather
of
certain
selected
aspects
of
that
history,
in
which
Dr.
Pick
displays
a
remarkable
erudition
and
an
historical
sense
which
make
several chapters
stand out.
From
this
point
of
view,
the introductory
chapter
is
the
most
valuable
one,
while
the last
one,
strange
to
say,
is
the
weakest-possibly
because
it
is
largely an
essay
on
Professor
Hans
Kohn's
brilliant
study,
The Idea
of
Nationalism. On
the
whole,
here
we
have English
historical
scholarship
at
its
best.
University
of
Bridgeport,
Bridgeport,
Conn.,
June
1949.
Joseph
S.
Roucek
RURAL
LIFE
IN
ARGENTINA. By
Carl
C.
Taylor.
1948.
(Baton
Rouge,
La.:
Louisiana
State
University Press.
xxii,
464pp.
$6.00
U.S.)
Most
books
of
description
and
travel
are
inevitably
superficiaL
But
since
no
adequate
judgments
on
a
foreign
country
can
be
reached
without
a
real
knowledge
of
the
social
and
economic
conditions
in
the
areas involved,
this
work
is
a
refreshing
change
from
the three-week-
airport-to-airport
type
of account
so
frequently
offered
the
reader.
Dr.
Carl
C.
Taylor
is
head
of
the
Division
of
Farm
Population
and
Rural
Welfare
in
the
Bureau
of
Agricultural
Economics,
United
States
De-
partment
of
Agriculture,
and
consequently
may
be
accepted
as
a
competent
observer.
Dr. Taylor
has
applied
scientific
methods
to
his
study
and
presents
a
detailed
account
accompanied by
many
tables
and
graphs.
The
picture presented
is
a
complicated
one.
On
the
one
hand
the
reader
encounters
the
story
of
absentee landlords,
large holdings,
tenant
farmers,
itinerant
labour,
and
poor houses,
and
on
the
other
a
standard
of
living
much
higher
than
is
described
in
other
books
on
the
subject.
The
author
is
aware
that
many
of
the
problems
of
Argentina have
their
roots
in
the past
and
so
has
included
some
useful
descriptions
of
79
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