A valuable contribution to the history of France is the exhaustive work by Dr. Edward Esmonin upon La Taille en Normandie au Temps de Colbert (Paris, Hachette, 1913; xxx, 552 pp.). The financial history of the old régime in France is of the utmost importance, not only for the understanding of the statecraft of Louis XIV, but also for the data of the Revolution. Much has been written about it since the day of Gomel, and the taille is a word to conjure with in our school manuals; but its exact extent and method of levy have been little understood. Dr. Esmonin's masterful study is in line with those intensive surveys of more limited fields which the younger group of historians are now offering us, drawn from local rather than national records. The field covered here is especially rich; and the author, who has spent some ten years of strenuous research upon his work, has furnished us with a permanent contribution to knowledge. Dr. Esmonin was secretary to Lavisse and was partially responsible for the treatment of this period in the great Histoire de France.

An extremely useful Source Book for Ancient Church History (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913; xxi, 707 pp.) has been prepared by Professor J. C. Ayer of the Protestant Episcopal Divinity School in Philadelphia. It covers the period from the Apostolic Age to the close of the conciliar period at the end of the eighth century. Dr. Ayer furnishes many new translations, selected with much discrimination and care, and embedded in helpful editorial articles. The printer has not done his part of the work so well, for it is rather hard to detect by the eye the part of the page which is given up to editorial matter as distinct from the text. The arrangement, too, seems somewhat open to question; the plan is rather elaborate, which means that it is not very flexible. Among the books called out by the war one of the best is the historical analysis of the background of the events of 1914 stated by Professor Ramsey Muir of the University of Manchester under the rather compromising title of Britain's Case Against Germany (New York, Longmans, Green and Company, 1914; ix, 196 pp.). The book contains a soberly conceived statement and a broad historical survey of the differing aims and tendencies which have marked German and English policies, not only since the recent commercial rivalry has accentuated these differences, but throughout the past. There are only a few places where fact seems twisted, the most notable being the assertion that France had done nothing in Morocco to justify German protests. The apology for Britain lies rather in the judgments pronounced upon the facts. Upon the whole the book will serve to inform the English upon the issues at stake as well as to confirm them in their faith.

Two lectures, "Turkey and the Balkan States" and "The War between the Allies," delivered by President Schurman of Cornell as the Stafford Little Lectures at Princeton University during the last academic year make up a little volume entitled The Balkan Wars, 1912-1913 (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1914; 140 pp.). As American Minister to Greece during the Balkan crisis the author enjoyed exceptional facilities for first-hand study of the subjects, and was thrown into personal contact with several of the leading Balkan statesmen. If the lectures give little evidence of original research or of a truly comprehensive grasp of the exceedingly complicated politics of southeastern Europe, they are at any rate a straightforward account of an interesting and important subject. The author makes clear that the disappearance for several centuries of Servian and Bulgarian nationality was not due solely, or perhaps even mainly, to the political domination of the Turks. It was largely the result of Greek ecclesiastical control. Over all of the Orthodox Christians of the Balkans the Patriarch of Constantinople exercised ecclesiastical jurisdiction down to 1870, and Greek religious, linguistic and cultural supremacy went hand in hand with Turkish sovereignty. The progress of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century is the story of the reawakening of national life long dormant under the dead weight of Turkish political domination and Greek ecclesiasticism. Dr. Schurman shows the suspicion and jealousy between the Balkan states in their recent conflicts with Turkey and with one another. He explains the elements of weakness in the "settlement" attempted by the Treaty of Bucharest. Now that the Balkan Question has been thrown into the melting pot of a world war the future of the Balkan states cannot be predicted, but it is safe to say that they will not be permitted to settle their problems free from outside interference.

Treitschke, His Doctrine of German Destiny and of International Relations, together with a Study af his Life and Work by Adolf Hausrath (New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1914; ix, 332 pp.) is the rather quaint form of the title given to a short biography of the historian and a translation of some eight chapters from the more vital sections of his works on politics and international law. The volume is not a very successful one, for Hausrath wrote in such an intimate way of his old colleague and friend, with so much personal gossip of other colleagues and references to political leaders in the early days of the Empire, that the average American reader can make but little out of it. Editorial notes would have improved the book, even if they were confined to explaining the attitude of the various political groups. But in any case

the translation should have been done with more care and competence. What is meant by the statement that "then took place the defection of Lasker and the Progressive party, which the Catholic faction attempted to engineer for the elections, and which willingly left the odium of civilization-a name invented by Virchow for the glory of Falk-to the National Liberals" (page 95)? Such Germanisms of the dictionary run through the essay, and in places the punctuation accentuates their obscurities. However, we are grateful for the texts which follow, which are in better shape. It is to be hoped that this part of the book will be widely read, to dispose of many current misconceptions.

In The Modernizing of the Orient (New York, McBride, Nast and Company, 1914; 353 pp.) Clayton Sedgwick Cooper presents a series of entertaining sketches about the processes at work in northern Africa, India, Burma, China, the Philippines and Japan, which show how the spirit and achievements of the Occident are helping to modify the conditions of life and thought in the other half of the world. It is based, apparently, on observations derived from two journeys thither. Agreeably written, aptly illustrated and stressing the old as well as the new, the characteristic as well as the imported or adapted, the book supplies a very readable account, neither profound nor yet superficial. The last chapter, which suggests an acquaintance with Townsend's well-known treatise, points out correctly enough that, while the Occident may give aid, through example at least, it can never modernize the Orient. This the Orient can do only by itself, and the indications are that it will do so within its own needs.

The Conquest of the Tropics (New York, Doubleday, Page and Company, 1914: xii, 368 pp.) by Frederick U. Adams, is the first of a series planned to describe certain big businesses whose histories and operations concern and should interest the public." This particular volume deals with the United Fruit Company, and is a defence of its benevolent and non-monopolistic character. A general account of the banana industry and its history is given, and then the rise and development of the United Fruit Company, the big business of the banana trade, is described in detail. Its disasters and losses and the fact that it has not raised prices are chronicled as proof of the main thesis; but at the same time there is adduced the evidence that dividends have never

been less that seven per cent. The legal incorporation in 1899 of the United Fruit Company was the "actual birth of the banana industry"; all prior efforts were in the way of speculation and experiment, lacking in the organization necessary for marketing so perishable a product. Much is said of the "Great White Fleet" of the Company, which is

not "excelled in comfort, luxury and safety"; and finally the United Fruit Company is proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. George F. Kenngott's The Record of a City (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1912; xiv, 257 pp.) is a statistical and social survey of the city of Lowell, Massachusetts. The topics covered are: the population, housing of the mill operatives, health, standard of living, industrial conditions, social institutions of public welfare, and recreation. Though containing much valuable material on the life and problems of a modern industrial city, this survey does not rank for exhaustiveness or scientific precision with such a work as Rowntree's study of York, England, or with the volumes of the Pittsburgh Survey. Nevertheless it is a welcome contribution to a literature that is altogether too small.

A survey of the San Francisco relief work appeared in 1913, somewhat over seven years after the great earthquake and fire which destroyed a considerable section of the city. It was first hastily printed on sheets in a crude form that it might serve as a guide and a text for persons connected with the relief work then going on in the Middle West. The studies, after reëditing and some polishing, were put into an extensive volume under the title of San Francisco Relief Survey. (New York, Survey Associates, Inc. 1913; xxvi, 484 pp., map and plates.) The book is furnished with many fine illustrations, clear diagrams, charts and maps. Its six parts are entitled respectively: Organizing the Force and Emergency Methods; Rehabilitation; Business Rehabilitation; Housing Rehabilitation; Relief Work of the Associated Charities; The Residuum of Relief-The Aged, The Infirm, and The Handicapped. The volume appears under the auspices of the Russell Sage Foundation and is concerned with relief from the standpoint of the National Red Cross, the Associated Charities and others closely affiliated with the Sage Foundation. The relief afforded under the direction of military, the state and religious or other private bodies is in general referred to only as aiding (or interfering with) the work which receives the principal consideration.

Economics in the Secondary School (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914; vi, 93 pp.) by John Haynes, is one of the series of Riverside Educational Monographs edited by Professor Suzzallo. It covers about the same ground as Clow's Economics as a School Study, published in 1899, trying to show the importance of economics as a secondary school subject, its relation to other subjects, its present status in the schools and the best methods of teaching it. An outline of a course in economics and a bibliography are added.

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Scott Nearing's fluent pen has of late years obtained a wide audience, particularly in a part of the population with firm convictions on social questions. His Social Adjustment (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1911; xvii, 377 pp.) is an able essay displaying great faith in environment and the facility with which environment may be altered. In the foreword to the book the author enumerates the seven points which he wishes to make. (1) Maladjustment, often virulent maladjustment, of humans to their environment exists in many parts of the United States. (2) The maladjustment has economic causes "remediable through social action." (3) Education and wise legislation are the remedies. (4) The vast majority of children are born normal and are made abnormal, degenerate, and diseased by their defective environment." (5) Genius appears in every class in the community, and in about the same relative proportions. (6) Progress is impossible "so long as society condemns men" for their father's transgressions, but lets brothers go. (7) Promulgation of the new view [!] of the universality of human capacity, the remediability of maladjustment and the advantages of universalized opportunity," will eventually eliminate maladjustment. Serious consideration of these points is not necessary, as the book is an essay, not a text or a scholarly work. Point 4, however, is peculiarly unfortunate because of its statement that the vast majority of children became abnormal, degenerate and diseased. As it is here worded it can hardly fail to offend, if not disgust.

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Social Religion, also by Scott Nearing, (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1913; xx, 227 pp.) bears the sub-title "An Interpretation of Christianity in Terms of Modern Life." It is depressing in its view of humanity, full of startling adjectives and rhetorical subterfuges to bring man to a sense of his inherent weakness and evil. The wretched gamble for pennies; the wellfed for forests, mines, dignities, offices." The assumption is made that it is evil to gamble. The book though well written, is disagreeable with its monotonous one-sided portrayal of the "truth. It proposes the remedy: social religion.

A third book by Dr. Nearing, Financing the Wage-Earner's Family (New York, B. W. Huebsch, 1913, 177 pp.) is of a different character. Compiled largely from federal and state reports, it bears the subtitle "A Survey of the Facts Bearing on Income and Expenditures in the Families of American Wage-Earners." The book is in fact a brief essay in statistics, with five chapters and an appendix. The workingman's problem in financing his family is clearly put. Chapter ii deals with what may be considered a satisfactory standard of living. Chapter iii takes "The Cost of a Standard of Living." Chapter iv compares

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