The Annual Register (Longmans, 3os.) provides its customary review of
public events at home and abroad. It is invaluable as a work of reference—not for the factual information con- tained, though this is abundant, but because of the general framework of narrative in which the facts are set. In such a narrative objectivity is presumably the aim, and perhaps it is not surprising that the aim has not been attainable. The political events of last year divided so profoundly all sections of opinion in this country that possibly the really impartial narrator does not exist. Certainly he has not written the section on English History in this year's Annual Register. Conviction, however, makes for a livelier record, and the reader is always free to discount any bias he detects and to substitute his own. English, Imperial and Foreign History each has a section to itself. There is a chronicle of events for the year, a retrospect of literature, art and science, surveys of finance, commerce and law, the text of public documents, and fifty pages of obituaries. There is a good index, and the book may fitly stand beside its 179 predecessors.
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