Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/626

 618 SHORT NOTICES October and arrangement, but the substance of the book is equally worth attention. As he formerly did for the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, so for the nineteenth Dr. Fueter takes as his main thread the development of social organization, and especially the economic effects of changes of population. In applying his ' social-political ' criteria to the movements of the last age, of which the greatest is the world-wide expansion of European control or organization, he has, of course, had numerous predecessors in various countries, but his results differ frequently from those which are most familiar. In the later chapters, and most of all in the last, which deals with the recent war, this has led to adverse criticism from some foreign countries, and we ourselves, although we should like to accept the whole of what may be called his justification of the allies, do not feel able to do so. Nor, indeed, can the work in general be altogether acquitted of a certain rationalistic simplification which its mere brevity and clearness have imposed upon it ; but, in spite of these reservations, we confidently recommend it as a vigorous, stimulating, and enlightening book, which well deserves, amongst other things, to be translated into English. G. N. C. The late Sir Edward Fry, after his retirement from the bench, made several contributions to this Eeview, 1 and he deserved well of historians in many other ways, for instance as one of the founders of the Selden Society. The width of his interests is perhaps what most impresses the reader of the Memoir of the Right Honourable Sir Edward Fry, G.C.B. (London : Milford, 1921), which his daughter, Miss Agnes Fry, has prepared ; but his career was as remarkable as his versatility. He lived long enough to remember, during the late war, the Bristol riots of 1831. He read Berkeley's Human Vision when he was fifteen and became an ambassador, for the first time, when he was seventy-nine. In many fields he fulfilled his wish of being ' whole to the work ' while it was before him. and not least, in spite of their simplicity and reticences, in writing the autobiographical notes which make the basis of this volume. For the second Hague Con- ference, a ' chaos of clever men ' as he calls it, and for his other work as an international jurist they form a supplementary authority which historians should not neglect. F. The ninth and last volume of M. Lavisse's Histoire de France Con- temporaine (Paris : Hachette, 1922), which covers the period from Serajevo to the signature of the Peace of Versailles, is of composite authorship. M. Gauvain deals with the diplomatic history before, during, and after the war. His narrative is moderate, clear, and precise, though there are a good many omissions from his bibliography. No mention is made of the work of any British statesman on the origins of the war, nor of the Lichnowsky memorandum ; while the History of the Peace Conference undertaken by the Institute for International Affairs is ignored, though it is by far the fullest and most systematic account yet published. There is also one striking omission in the text ; the author probably does not consider the role played by Soukhomlinofi as important, but the central 1 See ante, x. 760 ; xu. 748 ; xx. 22.