Britannica Book of the Year 195r. (Encyclopaedia Britannica. £3.)
Tins useful survey of the events of 1950, running to more than 700 large pages, gives special attention, as was required, to the Communist movement and to China and Korea. There is a full account of the Roman Catholic Holy Year and there are articles on such subjects as Libraries (marking the centenary of the Public Libraries Act), Civil Defence, and the Schuman Plan, as well as the expected annual features. From the mass of statistical information one can learn (among much else) that there were 471,364 Boy Scouts in Great Britain in 1950 and that there were 771 million horses, 730 million sheep and 279 million pigs in the world. The illustrations have been selected with dis- crimination: as in the choice of Ruskin Spear's excellent " Portrait of a Boy," which was certainly one-of the best academic paint- ings of the year.
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