Shorter Notices - The Growth of the American Republic. By
S. E. Morison and H. S. Commager. (Geoffrey Cumberlege. 2 vols. 70s.) SINCE its first appearance in 1930, this book has become established as the standard short history of the United States. The new edition contains 300 additional pages, continuing the narrative from 1928, through the slump, the recovery, the Second World War and the years of peace up to the North Atlantic Treaty of April; 1949. The chapters on the war are terse and unam- biguous ; they suggest Professor Morison's hand. The more elegant style of Professor Commager can be discerned in the story of the peace years, and behind its literary graces a number of questions lurk unanswered. Whereas, for example, earlier chapters give ample material for an unequivocal judgement on Wilson, these new chapters leave the verdict of " history " on Roosevelt unpredicted. Yet the authors leave no doubt about the greatest of all changes that have taken place in America since 1928—that of an isolationist republic into an active international Power. The chronicle of U.S.A. from the year 1000 to 1942 is American history ; the chronicle since 1942 is world history. It is only regrettable, from the point of view of the foreign reader, that this new orientation has the effect of diverting the historians' atten- tion from the domestic American scene. Hence for all its merits—and its uncommon value at seventy shillings for 2,000 pages- . this enlarged Morison and Commager will not replace our own Professor Brogan or even Mr. Geoffrey Gorer. M. C.
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