NOTABLE BOOKS
RACIAL REALITIES IN EUROPE. By Lothrop Stoddard. (Charles Scribner's Sons. 12s. 6d.) Ma. LOTHROP STODDARD is of the great order of popularizers. He has the quick, eager, transatlantic mind. He grasps, one after another, the theories of modern biological science, applies them vividly to the world as it is to-day, and thus writes exciting books about the " perils " that face us from the Mohammedans, the Negroes or the Bolshevists. Unfor- tunately, the theories on which he bases his books are some- times only the views of individual scientists and have not yet reached the unchallenged and established position of ascer- tained scientific fact. Thus, in his new book he has taken up the " Great Nordic Race " theory. He draws (or rather traces from Madison Grant) a new map of Europe in three colours—red for the Nordics, green for the Alpines, and yellow for the Mediterraneans. Then he takes each European nation in turn and analyses it into its three constituent parts. By the interaction of the characteristics which he has laid down for Nordics, Alpines and Mediterraneans, he explains its history and present condition. And finally he bewails the decrease in the number of the Nordics. We do not doubt that the book will prove useful and interesting to anyone who reads it in a spirit of philosophic doubt. Certainly there is much in what Mr. Stoddard says ; his simple analysis does throw light on the European situation. But we cannot for one moment accept a scale of values in which all other factors and influences are nugatory against the single factor of racial origin.
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