Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/483

 1920 SHORT NOTICES 475 Persian having been so long the regular channel of communication between English officials and Indian princes and notables, the Imperial Record Office at Calcutta naturally contains a large and valuable collection of documents in that language ; and students of Indian history will give a warm welcome to the series of Calendars of Persian Correspondence (Calcutta : Superintendent Government Printing, 1911-19). To the late Dr. C. R. Wilson, then in charge of the Imperial Record Office, belongs the credit of recognizing the value of these documents and of arranging for their classification. Sir Denison Ross, when he in turn assumed charge of the records of the government of India, went a step further and formed a special stafE for the purpose of studying and calendaring them ; and the first calendar, which covered the years 1759-67 and was mainly the work of Maulavi Zarif Muhammad, was published in 1911. A second volume, dealing with the documents of 1767-9, appeared in 1914, and then Sir Denison Ross handed on the task to his successor, Mr. A. F. Scholfield. Now a third calendar has been issued, which brings the record down to the year 1772. This has a short preface by Mr. Scholfield and an introduction by Maulavi Badruddin Ahmad, the head of the Persian section of the Imperial Record Office, who also contributes three valuable appendices on special points ; while a combined index and glossary adds to the usefulness of the volume. The calendaring is carefully done, and the whole production is a credit to Indian scholarship. W. F. In volumes ii and iii of A Social History of the American Family from Colonial Times to the Present (Cleveland, U.S.A. : Clark, 1918-19)^ Mr. Arthur W. Calhoun carries his story through its remaining stages. In volume ii, ' From Independence through the Civil War ', he deals with the influence of pioneering and frontier life and the growth of cities on the position of women and children, and discusses the conditions in the south — the negro family, the white family, and racial mixture. He draws a dark picture of the influence of the system of slavery on the social life of the south. The last volume deals with the recovery from the civil war and with the problems arising out of modern industrial expansion — ' the passing of patriarchism and familism ', ' the precarious home', race sterility, divorce, &c. It cannot be said that these two volumes show any difference in style or workmanship from the first. With considerable labour a large body of material relative to social conditions has been brought together. It includes some interesting illustrations, but it lacks arrangement, cohesion, and conclusion. The reader may learn a good deal about family life at different times in difierent parts of America, but he will find it difficult to learn what evolution Mr. Calhoun supposes the American family to have passed through. E. A. B. In the preface to his Gambetta (Paris : Hachette, 1919) the President of the French Republic tells us that it was Gambetta who first introduced him to political life, so that his sketch of Gambetta's career has that lasting value which is given by the personal acquaintance of the biographer
 * See ante, xxxiii 282.