23 APRIL 1948, Page 26

Shorter Notices

France : A Short History.. By Albert Guerard. (Allen and Unwin. 8s. 6d.)

IN spite of certain defects this is an excellent short introduction to French history. Professor Guerard, French by birth, has lived and taught in America for the past forty years, and speaks throughout as an American. He writes history as it should be written, with just enough dates and hard facts to make a skeleton structure, and with much more attention paid to the movements and trends that have marked the evolution of France -through the centuries. It would be difficult for the story to be better told. The only criticism to be made of Professor Guerard is that he might have used his limited space more wisely. The thirty-odd pages which precede the chapter on " The Origins " could well have been cut to half ; a preliminary laudation of France is uncalled for if France's own history decks her with laurels as Professor Guerard, with much justice, thinks it does. And it would have been well on the whole to stop at 1918 instead of 1945. Professor Guerard's judgements on the men and move- ments of the last thirty years are the least satisfactory part of his book. Such a statement, for example, as " England has reverted to the old balance-of-power game—debellare st.i.;erbos, France must be humbled," in relation to the post-1918 period, provokes immediate challenge. There was a very different side to that story.