As a brief historical exposition of the principles underlying the
League of Nations, nothing could be better than The Growth of International Thought which Miss Melian Stawell, of Newnham, has just written for the Home University Library (Thornton Butterworth, 2s. 6d.). This attractive and scholarly little book touches on the views of the ancient world and the Middle Ages and then discusses in more detail the ideas of prominent thinkers on internationalism from the Renaissance to our own day. Miss Stawell is unusually fair to Rousseau and Mazzini, and points out that they were not such unpractical idealists as some suppose. She herself evidently feels that patriotism is entirely consistent with, and, indeed, essential to, co-operation between the nations. Some ardent advocates of international good will occasionally overlook this truth. It may well be that the establishment of a League of Nations was delayed through the ages not so much because it was too remote an ideal but because the several nations of Europe were not well enough organized on a common level of culture to be able to work together peacefully as they now do at Geneva.
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