Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/858

 A TRIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN DIPLOMACY I. PRINCIPLES. The sources for the study of American foreign relations are very abundant, and there are many general treatises on international law. Secondary narratives are now coming forward in considerable numbers, and the publication of monographs has begun. As yet, however, no one has attempted a systematic bibliography of the subject ; and the investi- gator is swamped by the very wealth of his materials. It has therefore seemed worth while to classify, enumerate and describe the most serviceable books and collections bearing on American diplomacy, though space does not allow any attempt to include the large literature of periodical articles, or to analyze the collections either top- ically or chronologically. This bibliography is therefore simply a check- list of the more accessible books, with such brief comment as may show their value and their bearing. In most cases works which are out of print or otherwise unavailable, however valuable, are not included. For the investigator a path may be found deeper into the literature, and to special topics, through the bibliographical aids mentioned below, and through the footnotes to treatises on international law, and narratives, histories and monographs. Works of especial significance and usefulness are noted by an asterisk (*). The list is not confined to the diplomacy of the United States since 1775. In the sense of the bibliography American diplomacy begins with the relations of the colonizing European countries with each other at the time of its discovery ; follows out the rival claims to territory in the new world, and the treaties of delimitation ; deals with commerce and the external regulation of colonial commerce, especially with other American settlements ; discusses intercolonial correspondence and plans of union ; describes the wars by land and sea in America during the eighteenth century, ending with the exclusion of France in 1763 ; and then proceeds to the foundation of a foreign office, a foreign system and a foreign policy by the Continental Congress, and thus to the diplomacy of the Federal Republic in all its ramifications. II. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AIDS. The general bibliographies of American history include most of the special books on diplomacy down to about 1895, although none of them except Winsor has a distinct section on the subject. Thus Channing and 848