Book Review: Politics: Trials and Errors
| Author | F. H. Soward |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070205100600118 |
| Date | 01 March 1951 |
| Published date | 01 March 1951 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BooK
REVIEWS
69
POLITICS:
TRIALS
AND
ERRORS.
By
The Right
Honourable
Lord
Hankey.
1950.
(Oxford: Pen-in-Hand.
vi,
150
pp.
8s.6d.)
The
jacket
cover
of
this
book
describes
it
"as the
most
important
political
book
of
the
year."
It
is
certainly not
that,
but
can
be
claimed
to
be
a
significant
book
in
which
a
British
statesman
of
unique
experi-
ence
in
peace-making
and
diplomacy
by
conference
during
and
after
World
War
One,
criticises
some
of
the
blunders
made
during
and
after
World
War
Two.
Lord
Hankey
believes
that
the
Allies
broke with past
experience
in
their
policy of
demanding
unconditional
surrender
and
in
their
conduct
of
the
war
trials
at Nuremberg
and
Tokyo.
As
he
remarks
in
his
book
"The
first
aim
of
war
is
to
win,
the
second
is
to
avoid
defeat,
the
third
to
shorten
it,
and the
fourth
and most
important,
which
must
never
be
lost
to
sight,
is
to
make
a
just
and
durable
peace.
Emotional-
ism
of
all
kinds, hate,
revenge
and
punishment
and
anything
that
handi-
caps
the
nation
in
achieving
these
things
are
out
of
place."
His
series
of
essays,
which
are
inclined
to
be
repetitive
and
to
rely too
much
upon
his
speeches
in
the
House
of
Lords,
illustrate
this
thesis
with
vigour
and
sincerity.
Tighter
organization and
more
reflection would have
made
this
a
better
book.
Vancouver,
1950.
F.
H.
Soward
PEACEMAKING
IN
PERSPECTIVE:
FROM
POTSDAM
TO
PARIS.
By
F. W.
Pick.
1950.
(Oxford:
Pen-in-Hand.
251
pp.
10s.6d.)
The
late
Dr.
Pick,
a
German
refugee who
had
been
in
England
for
thirteen
years,
died
suddenly
last
October
at
the
early
age
of
37.
In
his
last
book
he
attempted
a
popular
description
of
the
efforts
to work
out
peace
settlements
between
1945
and
1949,
with
special
emphasis
upon
the
Paris
Conference
of
1946.
The result
is
a
lively
account
which
suffers occasionally from
the
Ludwig
device
of
telling us
what
some
statesmen
thought
when
there
is
no
record
of
what
he
actually
did
think
upon
that
particular
topic.
The
value
of
the
book
is
also
limited
by
descriptions
of
unfinished
busi-
ness, such
as the
future
of
the
Italian
colonies,
the
position
of
Trieste,
and the
Austrian
treaty
where
the
process
of
peace
making,
if
it
can
be
called
that,
is
still
in
action.
The
book
also does
not,
or
probably
could
not,
make
effective
use
of
the
numerous
American
accounts
of
some
of
the
American
participants
in
the
negotiations
which
the author
describes.
Within
these
considerable
limitations
Peacemaking
in
Perspective
is a
helpful
and
useful
little
study.
Vancouver,
1950.
F.
H.
Soward
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