23 DECEMBER 1955, Page 28

POLITICAL THOUGHT OF THE GERMAN ROMAN - TICS. Translated and selected

by H. S. Reiss. (Basil Blackwell, 15s.) Tuts hook contains extracts from the writings of some exponents of German Romanticism, a movement still of interest especially because of its influence on the political structure created by Mkt. The People's Tribunals, for instance, were foreshadowed by the jurist Savigny, who set the Volksgeist above legal principles. In his Introduction the author shows that the whole tendency was opposed to Westefn thought. Ile might have pointed out the attraction which the Roman Church had, for instance, for Novalis, whom he quotes as the leading Romantic poet; for the movement, based on imaginary Meditevalism, led, among other things, to a Catholic revival in Germany.

D. L. HOBMAN