Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/395

 Paul : A History of Moder7i Efigland 385 It will appear from this that it would be a very delicate matter in- deed to discriminate between the degrees of responsibility attached by the two writers to Bismarck. The most direct and serious disagreement between them is with regard to the factor of public feeling in France and Germany. Zwiedineck-Siidenhorst declares that the whole French people must bear the responsibility, no serious effort having been made in any quarter to prevent the war; while Denis maintains that the Ger- man historians who say that French public feeling wanted war deceive themselves " volontairement ou non ". With regard to German feeling, "die laute Zustimmung zur That von Ems*' (p. 447) is to the Austrian a holy emotion, which he is proud to reflect that the Deutsch-Oester- reicher shared; to Denis the German outcry was due largely to the production by the university teaching of a youth that " n'a qu'un credo: la conviction de la superiorite de la vertu et de la science germaniques ; qu'une religion: la force; qu'un besoin : la domination" (p. 471). Neither of these books can be said to add much to our knowledge of the period, and it is not to be expected that they should. The careful reader will not be always in agreement with either, but will acknowledge both to be good summaries, useful especially for the general reader and in showing the student the present state of our information in this field. Neither claims to be presenting a definitive history, and both seem in consequence to feel more or less of irresponsibility as to the expression of personal views. Denis is on the whole quite as trust- worthy as Zwiedineck-Siidenhorst, and is much more brilliant and sug- gestive; there are more gaps, however, in his narrative, and he does not follow the political development as carefully. Unhappily neither volume is provided with an index. Victor Coffin. A History of Modern England. By Herbert P.vul. In five vol- umes. ^'olume A". (Xew York: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan and Company. 1906. Pp. vi, 405.) The fifth and last volume of Mr. Paul's History of Modern England begins with June 8, 1885, " a memorable day in English history. . . from [which] all subsequent events in this History take in some degree their colour." It was, in fact, the day on which Mr. Gladstone an- nounced to the queen his defeat in the momentous general election of that year. The ensuing narrative concludes with Mr. Campbell-Ban- nerman's " shut[ting] up his box with a snap" (p. 268), resigning his office, and thus forcing the general election of 1895, which, like that of s. decade before, brought defeat to the Liberal party. The preceding volume concerned itself with Imperialism and Ireland. The present volume is dominated by the course of the Irish question in English politics by which it first disrupted and then overthrew the Liberal party. It is, in brief, the tragedy of Home Rule, and it ends in doubt if not in despair. The only relief comes in the suggestions which abound, that