Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/636

 628 SHORT NOTICES October there were who would have been glad to be rid of the institution if they could h&ve found the means, but, while he does justice to the south, he does rather less than justice to the abolitionists. But he has made a very useful contribution to the history of the question of slavery, for one of the best ways of understanding its difficulties and complexities is to study it from the middle point of view of the * colonizationist ', E. A. B. Mr. C. R. L. Fletcher turns his gift of spirited expression to good use in his short sketch, The Great War (London : Murray, 1920). Here the armed services of the Crown come into their own ; organizers of strikes and other clogs to victory receive their due. Perhaps he despises ' the politi- cians ' too much ; perhaps he is too oblivious towards such British patrio- tism as had perforce to find expression in civil work. The vigour and vivacity of the book ought, however, to win it popularity ; it is too light to rank as very solid history. G. B. H. The editors of the Statesman's Y ear-Book (London : Macmillan, 1920) have had to contend with great difficulties in the * almost daily changes throughout the world ' which result from the various peace-treaties and the attempts to obstruct them or carry them out. These same changes, however, make this admirable book of reference still more valuable as a guide in the labyrinth of contemporary history, Jthd the present volume keeps up the high standard of the series. Two maps are given, one of the territorial changes in Africa, the other of South-Eastern Europe and the Near East, from Koweit and Astrakhan to Tunis and Geneva, as they stood in May 1920. A. The title of Mrs. Janet Penrose Trevelyan's Short History of the Italian People (New York : Putnam, 1920) is somewhat misleading, because it leads us to expect a work on the lines of the late J. R. Green, whereas it follows rather the plan of the English summary of Sismondi. It is, in fact, a history of the various Italian states rather than of the Italian people, and while Mrs. Trevelyan lays no claim to original research, she has read and digested a great number of excellent authorities in several languages, and, like her distinguished husband, professes a love for Italy which does not prevent her at times from being critical. As is the case with all English histories of Italy, the least satisfactory part of the book is the ' Epilogue ', which treats of the fifty years since 1870. It is not certain, as she seems to assume, that Crispi was mainly responsible for Adowa : when the great Sicilian statesman died, a packet of documents, containing a very different version of the Abyssinian affair, mysteriously disappeared from his study table ; nor did the second Giolitti cabinet begin in 1901, but in 1903, although Signer Giolitti was already minister of the interior imder Zanardelli ; not all the railways were taken over by the state in 1905, nor was the result perhaps so satisfactory as the writer imagines. Little is said about the Libyan war, and it can hardly be maintained that of Italy's intervention in the European struggle in 1915. The main street of Naples (p. 391) is no longer called ' Toledo ' but ' Roma ', and it might
 * the sinking of the Lusitania was perhaps the determining factor ' (p. 548)