Book Reviews : The Times Survey of Foreign Ministries of the World, Zara Steiner (Ed.), Times Books, London, 1982. £40
| Date | 01 October 1983 |
| DOI | 10.1177/004711788300700609 |
| Author | Alan James |
| Published date | 01 October 1983 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
2512
BOOK
REVIEWS
Letters
to
a
Grandson
,
Lord
Home,
Collins
£6.95
This
book
should
not
be
entitled
&dquo;Letters
to a
Grandson&dquo;
but
&dquo;Letters
to
all
Grandchildren&dquo;,
for
the
distilled
wisdom
and
experience
which
it
embodies
would
be
an
invaluable
guide
to
young
people
growing
up
in
an
increasingly
complex
world.
In
151
pages
Lord
Home
has
unbelievably
managed
to
give
the
reader
an
unbiased
and
balanced
account
of
the
kernel
of
our
political
and
diplomatic
experiences
from
the
end
of
the
First
World
War
to
the
present
day.
His
text
is
as
refreshingly
free
of
the
obsessive
desire
of
most
actors
on
the
world
stage
to
justify
their
own
actions
and
reactions
to
events
as
it
is
of
the
tendency
either
to
vilify
or
deni~rate
his
colleagues.
At
the
same
time,
his
assessment
both
of
their
virtues
and
idiosyncracies,
and
the
soundness
of
their
decisions-with
due
allowance
for
circumstances,
clashes
of
character
and
the
play
of
events
to
a
large
extent
outside
their
control-is
admirable.
He
illustrates
by
some
delightfully
humorous
examples
how
difficult
it
is
for
the
majority
of
nations
to
appreciate
and
make
allowance
for
the
misunderstanding
that
often
exists
in
the
interpretation
of
events
outside
their
national
frontiers,
especially
the
case
of
Russia.
It
is
also
increasingly
true
that
the
common
language
of
the
US
and
Great
Britain
is
rapidly
becoming
an
obstacle
to
understanding
rather
than
a
common
bond.
The
reader
is
still
left
with
the
nagging
question
of
how
many
of
the
men
responsible
for
our
destiny
before
the
Second
World
War
had
taken
the
trouble
to
read
&dquo;Mein
Kampf
&dquo; where
Hitler
set
out
in
words
of
one
syllable
the
manner
in
which
he
intended
to
fulfil
his
ambitions.
For
the
rest
it
is
perhaps
difficult
to
share
even
the
restrained
optimism
expressed
in
Lord
Home’s
final
Postscript
in
which
he
claims
that
he
is
not
quite
so
glum
over
our
future
prospects
as
his
opening
chapter
might
lead
one
to
conclude.
As
he
says,
man’s
nature
has
not
changed
radically
over
the
millenia.
However,
today
Western
science
has
enormously
enhanced
our
problems,
both
as
a
result
of
the
rapid
compression
of
time
and
space
which
has
led
to
a
violent
collision
of
cultures
at
every
stage
of
development,
and
because
of
the
enormous
powers
for
good
or
evil
which
it
has
put
into
our
hands.
Moreover,
consumerism
is
the
modern
gospel
conveyed
to
all
parts
of
the
globe
by
the
media,
while
the
increase
of
trade,
regardless
of
its
content,
is
frequently
represented
as
the
road
to
Utopia.
It
is
a
Utopia
which
all
too
often
turns
out
to
be
a fata
morgana,
retreating
as
it
is
pursued.
The
final
verdict
on
our
century
bids
fair
to
behicjacet
though
it
will
not
be
by
way
of
a
nuclear
war
launched
against
the
West
by
Russia.
—M.M.
Sibthorp
The
Times
Survey
of
Foreign
Ministries
of
the
World,
Zara
Steiner
(Ed.),
Times
Books,
London,
1982.
£40.
Two
points
must
immediately
be
made
about
this
book.
Firstly,
its
title
is
somewhat
extravagant,
given
the
fact
that
it
covers
24
countries
and,
further,
that
18
of
them
are
of
the
European,
non-Communist
variety.
(The
other
six
are
Australia,
Canada,
China,
Japan,
the
Soviet
Union,
and
the
United
States.)
Secondly,
the
dust
jacket
insists
on
calling
it
a
work
of
reference,
but
it
hardly
accords
with
the
usual
meaning
of that
phrase.
There
is,
it
is
true,
a
chart
setting
out
the
current
administrative
structure
of each
selected
country’s
foreign
ministry.
But
beyond
that
the
book
consists
of
individually-written
chapters
which,
although
generally
conforming
to
a
fairly
standard
pattern,
are
not
going
to
be
of much
use
to
anyone
who
wants
easily-accessible
information
of
a
purely
factual
kind,
not
even
if
he
goes
first
to
the
detailed
index.
The
people
who
are
going
to
find
this
book
valuable
are
students
of
history.
Almost
every
chapter
is
written
by
a
professional
historian
or
archivist,
and
the
authors
approach
their
subjects
in
a
historical
manner.
Accordingly
it
is
no
surprise
to
find
that
although
the
book
sets
out
to
chroncile
both
the
evolution
and
.
operation
of
the
foreign
ministries
in
question,
the
emphasis
throughout
is
on
their
evolution.
It is
very
rare
to
find
more
than
one-third
of
a
chapter
on
the
years
since
the
Second
World
War,
and
in
one
important
case
where
that
does
happen-with
regard
to
the
American
Department
of
State-the
treatment
is
disappointing.
Valerie
Cromwell’s
discussion
of
the
Foreign
and
Commonwealth
Office
only
properly
gets
into
the
post-1945
period
in
the
last
fifth
of the
chapter,
and
there
it
is
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