Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/712

 702 Reviews of Books from Professor Bury's statement that " history is not a branch of litera- ture." Like many others, Senator Lodge would find the true purpose of history to be that of discovering a theory of human development, of laying down principles which shall explain past events and forecast the future. While advocating a philosophy of history, he admits that no one theory will explain everything, and points to the failure of such philosophies as have been developed in the past. The scientific his- torian of the present will hardly agree with the conclusion expressed in the following sentences : " A new period, bringing with it forces and conditions hitherto unknown, confronts modern history. Unless she can solve the problem it presents, unless she can bring forth a theory of the universe and of life which shall take up the past and from it read the riddle of the present and draw aside the veil of the future, then history in its highest sense has failed" (p. 127). All of the essays are written in Senator Lodge's agreeable manner; he, at least, has preserved a literary finish in these essays upon histori- cal and allied subjects. It is often refreshing to find such a book, which does not pretend to add to the store of human knowledge, but presents old views and known facts in a pleasing and attractive form. Text-Books Outlines of Nineteenth Century History, by Philip Van Ness Myers (Boston, Ginn and Company, 1906, pp. v, 138), is a reprint of the chapters of the same author's Mediaeval and Modern History, which cover the nineteenth century after 181 5. The opportunity has been taken to revise the text with respect to the Russo-Japanese war. In a note on page 4 reference is made to the recent separation of Norway and Sweden, but with an unfortunate typographical error which places the dissolution of the union as occurring in 1805. In this separate form the book will be useful as a brief introductory work upon the history of the nineteenth century. It would have been better, however, to include the chapters upon the Napoleonic era; the elementary student would be somewhat embarrassed if introduced without preparation to the complex problems presented at the Congress of Vienna.