Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/612

 604 REVIEWS OF BOOKS October to the class of ' philologists '. Only a few are dealt with less severely, those who had been trained during the preceding period, as De Leva and Com- paretti,- and were thus enabled to react against the excesses of positivism. But younger men completely failed in this respect, though several among them realized the barrenness of their work. Their works were as learned as they were dry and tedious, and they made no appeal to the general public of cultivated readers. The revival, however, did not come about by any conscious effort, but in a circuitous way. The world had been conceived naturalistically by the positivists, and the socialistic doctrine had become their ethics ; by degrees immanent idealism and a materialistic interpretation of history came to the fore, having as their exponents Arturo Labriola and Achille Loria. Thus history was no longer com- pletely divorced from philosophy, and younger scholars of socialistic tendencies set about to interpret the past from their particular political point of view ; they called themselves ' economic-juridical historians ', and a few among them, Salvemini, Volpe, Rodolico, and Caggese, succeeded in giving a new interpretation to certain medieval and modern historical events. Croce thinks that these living historians, wedding methodical research to speculative views, have helped Italian historiography to a considerable advance, but that the ultimate triumph can be realized only by scholars who have a sound philosophical preparation and who are idealists. Of such historians there are very few ; Croce names none, but implies that he is himself their leader and model. Judging from this work we should say that the new ' school ' will provide interesting and well- informed books making no claim to impartiality in their treatment of the past. C. FOLIGNO. Norsk Historisk Videnskap i Femti Ar 1869-1919. (Kristiania : Gr0ndahl, 1920.) THIS jubilee volume of the Norwegian Historical Union, edited by Pro- fessor Halvdan Koht with four colleagues, is designed to survey the scientific work of Norsemen in the domain of their national history during the last half-century. Ten living scholars explain the contribution of some 120 Norwegian historians, for whom the Historical Union has formed a valuable link and spur. The successive chapters treat of historical writing and popular growth, theories of Norwegian history, research, sources, archaeology, art and culture, legend, the history of literature, recent research in local history, genealogy, and the history of the Historical Union itself. Repetitions are of course inevitable, but in a work of this kind an occasional suggestion of a stage army is of small account. What more embarrasses a foreign reader is that Dr. Koht's excellent chapters are written in that artificial dialect in which the nationalism of some distinguished Norwegians finds expression. The volume clearly sets forth how, little more than fifty years ago, the question before Norsemen was whether their country should be Norwegian or Scandinavian, a question which inspired and coloured the writing of history, and to the solution of which history has contributed not a little. The triumph of J. E. Sars over Birkeland has epitomized later Norwegian