Modern Europe 1871-1939. By D. C. Somervell. Second Edition. (Methuen.
6s.)
DESIGNED with one eye on the schoolboy and the other on the general reader, this convenient little " dual utility " book first appeared in 1940, and has now gone into a second edition. The occasion might have been utilised for a thorough revision, but it does not seem to have been, though doubtless minor errata have been put right. The weak point of the book has always been that in spite of its many merits it too often fumbles important catches. Take, e.g., the account of Hitler's Anti-Semitism on page 152. Two things could be missed by no intelligent reader of Mein Kampf : (i) its origin, which was Viennese ; (2) its value, which was to pro- vide the German revanchistes at once with a scapegoat for their country's defeat and a victim to practise their violence on. Neither of these things is given here; instead, we get irrelevances about the Crusades and the Dreyfus case, and a misleading statement that Hitler (financed by Thyssen!) was " absolutely opposed " tb " big business." Shortcomings like these could easily be put right, and in a book which is deservedly in wide use they ought to be.
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