The Intelligent Man‘s Guide to the Post-War World Farewell to European History Or the Conquest of Nihilism

Abstract

THE lecturer or tutor who tries to guide his university extension or other students through the mazes of contemporary political and economic issues has long been accustomed to being asked to recommend a book which would cover the ground of his course and serve as a general reference work ; and he has not infrequently named one of the books, packed with useful information, which Prof. Cole has found time and energy to produce as the offshoots of his own varied studies. Three major productions of this kind appeared before the War, and the "Guide to Modern Politics" of 1934 is still remembered. But never before has Prof. Cole produced so tightly packed a guide as has now appeared : the information it contains almost overflows as one holds the book, and the table of contents reads like an encyclopædia. There is ample material here for the study of almost every aspect of current problems —population, industrial development, international trade, unemployment, emigration, capitalism and socialism, developments in Britain, in Europe and throughout the world, the United Nations, and the future of democracy. The reader is at a loss whether to admire more Prof. Cole‘s width of reading or his powers of exposition. The select book-list alone, which runs to something over ten pages, would keep several tutorial classes busy for years, while there is valuable material in the long and well-devised series of tables and charts.

The Intelligent Man‘s Guide to the Post-War World

By G. D. H. Cole. Pp. 1143. (London: Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1947.) 21s. net.

Farewell to European History Or the Conquest of Nihilism.

By Alfred Weber. Translated from the German by R. F. C. Hull. (International Library of Sociology and Social Reconstruction.) Pp. xx + 204. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1947.) 16s.