Book Department
| DOI | 10.1177/000271625228000123 |
| Published date | 01 March 1952 |
| Date | 01 March 1952 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
161
Book
Department
INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
AND
WORLD
GOVERNMENT
SCHWARZENBERGER,
GEORG.
Power
Poli-
tics :
A
Study
of
International
Society.
Pp.
xxii,
898.
Second
rev.
ed.
New
York:
Frederick
A.
Praeger,
1951.
$12.75.
What
can
be
said
within
the
confines
of
a
single
volume
about
international
rela-
tions
that
is
useful
and
meaningful-to
col-
lege
students
or
laymen
or
the
mythical
&dquo;general
reader&dquo;?
Many
have
been
in-
trigued
with
the
question
and
have
sought
to
answer
it,
this
reviewer
among
them.
Machiavelli
achieved
exceptional
brevity
and
clarity
in
the
enterprise
more
than
four
centuries
ago.
More
recent
endeav-
ors
have
been
less
succinct,
from
the
late
Raymond
Leslie
Buell’s
International
Re-
lations
(1925)
to
the
present
work.
Yet
the
project
is
worth
pursuing.
Every
ef-
fort
to
see
the
world
steadily
and
to
see
it
whole
contributes
something
to
our
under-
standing
of
the
global
system
of
sover-
eignties
in
which
we
live.
Such
under-
standing
may
in
turn
contribute
something
(in
ways
devious,
obscure,
and
ill
under-
stood)
toward
making
life
in
such
a
sys-
tem
conducive
to
survival
rather
than
to
death.
The
present
hefty
tome
is
a
notable
addition
to
this
type
of
literature.
Dr.
Schwarzenberger
is
Reader
in
International
Law
at
the
University
of
London,
Vice-
Dean
of
the
Faculty
of
Laws
of
Univer-
sity
College,
and
Director
of
Studies
at
the
London
Institute
of
World
Affairs,
under
whose
auspices
this
work
is
pub-
lished-originally
by
Stevens
and
Sons,
Ltd.
Among
other
useful
works,
he
pub-
lished
the
first
edition
of
the
present
book
in
1941.
Its
importance
on
both
sides
of
the
Atlantic
was
then
somewhat
obscured
by
the
flames
and
smoke
of
war.
This
second
edition
is
longer,
more
diffuse,
more
analytical,
less
well
documented
(a
defect
redeemed
by
an
admirable
bibliography
of
16
pages),
but
more
exciting
in
its
.lucid
and
highly
readable
commentary
on
the
shape
of
things,
past,
present,
and
future,
in
relations
among
sovereignties.
Despite
the
impressive
bulk
of
this
vol-
ume,
it
is
short
on
factual
data-a
charac-
teristic
which
may
be
deemed
a
virtue
rather
than
a
vice
for
all
I
can
discover
to
the
contrary
in
the
distribution
of
simi-
lar
works
among
American
readers.
There
are
no
tables
of
statistics,
nor
any
maps
beyond
two
end-papers.
There
are
no
illustrations
save
the
frontispiece,
&dquo;The
Tower
of
Babel&dquo;
by
Peter
Breughel
the
Flder.
Schwarzenberger
obviously
believes,
and
rightly
so,
that
&dquo;facts&dquo;
without
inter-
pretation
are
worthless,
and
therefore
con-
centrates
on
interpretation.
The
result
is
162
always
interesting,
frequently
provocative,
and
occasionally
brilliant.
For
all
the
author’s
professional
preoc-
cupation
with
international
law,
this
analy-
sis is
not
at
all
afHicted
with
&dquo;legalistic&dquo;
illusions.
International
law,
he
avers
(p.
213),
is
&dquo;emphatically
a
law
of
power&dquo;
and
little
more
than
&dquo;a
body
of
mutually
ad-
vantageous
rules
of
social
conduct&dquo;
(p.
217).
In
thirty-six
chapters,
Dr.
Schwarz-
enberger
undertakes,
with
animation
of
spirit
and
success
in
accomplishment,
to
depict
and
analyze
the
moving
human
fac-
tors
and
forces
in
the
Western
State
Sys-
tem.
Particularly
suggestive
are
his
com-
ments
on
&dquo;The
International
Aristocracy&dquo;
(the
sovereignties
of
the
System),
&dquo;The
International
Oligarchy&dquo;
(the
Great
Pow-
ers),
&dquo;Strategies&dquo;
and
&dquo;Tactics&dquo;
of
poli-
tics,
&dquo;The
Functions
of
International
Mo-
rality,&dquo;
and
the
chapters
on
the
League
of
Nations
and
the
United
Nations.
The
author
prudently
takes
pains
to
document
his
detestation
of Soviet
Com-
munism
(a
precaution
unnecessary
in
Eng-
land
but
essential
in
the
American
mar-
ket),
but
is
not
misled
thereby
into
any
advocacy
of
Holy
War.
He
hopes
for
a
resumption
of
diplomacy
and
has
much
to
say,
genially
or
acidly,
on
the
loss
of
free-
dom
of
choice
by
European
States
and
on
the
pretenses,
hypocrisies,
and
delusions
of
policy-makers
in
both
halves
of
One
World.
He
concluded
his
first
edition
with
a
plea,
akin
to
Toynbee’s,
for
a
return
to
God.
He
concludes
this
stimulating
re-
vision,
more
modestly,
with
a
plea
for
At-
lantic
Union-not
as
a
weapon
of
war
but
as
a
possible
nucleus
of
world
federation.
This
long
and
challenging
essay
deserves
wide
reading.
Unhappily,
since
academi-
cians
on
fixed
incomes
are
hard
pressed
by
the
&dquo;war-for-peace&dquo;
inflation,
Power
Poli-
tics
at
$12.75
is
unlikely
to
be
widely
bought
by
professors
or
generally
adopted
for
class
use.
A
wiser
publisher
would
have
priced
it
at
a
more
available
figure,
even
though
publishers,
no
less
than
writers,
are
victims
of
the
constantly
rising
prices
which
accompany
the
world’s
mud-
dle
and
drift
toward
a
final
and
fatal
Armageddon.
Dr.
Schwarzenberger
has
analyzed
many
aspects
of
this
process
with
acumen
and
insight.
His
work
will
at
least
be
accessible
in
good
libraries.
May
it
find
many
readers!
I
FREDERICK
L.
SCHUMAN
Williams
College
MAURER,
HERRYMON.
Collision
of
East
and
West.
Pp.
xvi,
352.
Chicago:
Henry
Regnery
Co.,
1951.
$4.50.
The
writing
of
history
has
been
pro-
foundly
affected
by
the
striking
successes
of
the
experimental
sciences.
Historians
have
spared
no
effort
in
marshaling
avail-
able
sources,
in
analyzing,
weighing,
and
testing
evidence,
and
in
documenting
con-
clusions
so
as
to
facilitate
verification.
This
methodology
has
produced
excel-
lent
accounts
describing
and
explaining
how
events
occurred.
Motivation
and
the
logic
of
historical
evolution,
however,
have
proved
more
difficult
of
demonstration.
Why
people
act
as
they
do,
and
why
cer-
tain
results
ensue
are
either
ignored
en-
tirely
or
explained
in
accord
with
premises
and
hypotheses
that
do
not
yield
readily
to
verification.
The
volume
under
review
seeks
to
deter-
mine
fundamental
causation
in
the
trou-
bled
area
of
the
Far
East
during
the
cata-
clysmic
decade
of
1937-1947.
The
author
is
fully
conversant
with
the
sequence
of
events
of
this
&dquo;.moment&dquo;
in
history,
and
he
surveys
the
unfolding
panorama,
indi-
cating
valleys
of
indecision
and
peaks
of
crises.
The
primary
purpose,
however,
is
to
explain
rather
than
to
describe
the
col-
lision
between
East
and
West,
and
under-
standing,
he
warns
us,
must
be
sought
in
terms
of
the
past-&dquo;the
total
immense
bulk
of
the
past,
eternally
inherent
in
the
present.&dquo;
A
study
of
the
past
reveals
a
clash
of
minds,
cultures,
and
ways
of
life
which.a
century
of
contact
failed
to
bridge.
Mr.
Maurer
argues
that
the
primary
fac-
tors
in
China’s
tragedy
were
not
feudalism,
landlordism,
or
illiteracy,
but
a
cultural
malaise
resulting
from
the
pressure
of
the
dynamic
West
upon
a
static
society
which
did
not
desire
change
and
could
not
find
the
means
of
harmonizing
tradition
with
the
modern
techniques
that
were
forced
upon
the
country.
The
mental
roots
were
lacking
for
the
acceptance
or
understand-
ing
of
the
Westerner’s
drive
to
control
na-
ture
or
to
subordinate
personal
and
family
163
relationships
to
the
molding
of
an
abun-
dant
life.
The
West,
equally
incapable
of
comprehending
the
scale
of
values
of
the
East,
saw
only
poverty
and
confusion,
and
made
little
effort
to
conceal
its
contempt
for
a
society
which
tolerated
such
evils.
Had
the
West
resorted
to
total
conquest
in
the
manner
of
the
Soviets,
the
gap
might
have
been
bridged
by
force,
but
that
too
proved
impossible
because
of
the
accepted
mores
of
the
West.
The
relationship,
cemented
neither
by
peaceable
interchange
nor
by
complete
domination,
proved
irritating
and
perplex-
ing,
and,
under
the
strain
of
the
late
war
and
its
aftermath,
it
broke
down
com-
pletely.
The
necessary
understanding
and
confidence
were
wanting
in
the
West
to
render
possible
adequate
aid
from
abroad.
The
sources
of
native
strength,
weakened
by
the
long
process
of
cultural
attrition,
were
completely
exhausted
by
the
eco-
nomic
and
political
dislocations
and
con-
fusions
of
war.
China,
therefore,
fell
easy
prey
to
a
determined
and
unscrupulous
conqueror.
The
author’s
hypothesis
is
especially
convincing
when
applied
to
the
East-West
relationships
in
Japan.
The
latter
was
indeed
&dquo;Westernized&dquo;
with
astonishing
ra-
pidity,
but
true
interchange
between
East
and
West
was
lacking.
Changes
were
ef-
fected
by
edict,
preserving
the
aristocratic
code
of
loyalty
to
superiors,
duty,
oppres-
sion,
and
self-restraint.
Thus,
modern
technology
and
armaments
only
reinforced
totalitarian
government
and
the
war
cult,
the
most
dangerous
pillars
of
Japanese
traditionalism.
Moreover,
the
attempt
to
preserve
intact
the
ancient
ways
in
an
in-
dustrialized
society
added
to
the
strains
and
frustrations
of
the
Japanese
way
of
life.
An
explosion
was
inevitable.
One
need
hardly
add
that
Mr.
Maurer
regards
recent
American
policy
in
the
Far
East
as
a
ghastly
failure.
But
one
must
be
careful
not
to
identify
him
with
the
critics
whose
views
of the
State
Depart-
ment
are
darkened
by
the
shadow
of
the
forthcoming
elections.
The
author’s
analy-
sis
provides
historical
perspective
for
our
failure,
and
he
is
careful
to
point
out
that
the
mistakes
in
China
were
inherent
in
the
historical
situation
and
must
be
laid
at
the
door,
not
of
a
small
group
of
government.
official,
but
of
the
American
people
as
a
whole.
Indeed,
Mr.
Maurer’s
criticism
of
our
Far
Eastern
policy
stems
from
a
concep-
tion
which
is
altogether
outside
the
sphere
of
present
political
discussions.
He
be-
lieves
that
our
policy
was
morally
wrong
and
inevitably
invited
disaster
because
it
failed
to
treat
other
nations
and
cultures
as
ends
in
themselves.
From
that
point
of
view,
our
occupation
policies
in
Japan
and
Korea
could
hardly
succeed
because
these
have
been
subordinated
to
our
global
for-
eign
policy.
This
high
purpose
merits
unstinting
praise.
Yet,
the
dilemma
of
our
age
re-
mains
in
all
its
bafHing
perplexity.
Assum-
ing
that
our
occupation
policy
in
South
Korea
had
been
flawless
and
had
won
the
full
approbation
of
all
unfettered
Koreans,
would
that of
itself
have
prevailed
against
the
blandishments
of
Soviet
imperialism?
Even
full
understanding
between
East
and
West
in
South
Korea
would
hardly
have
met
the
challenge
of
an
army
of
100,000
trained
and
indoctrinated
North
Koreans.
Realistic
statesmanship
would
have
re-
quired
the
conscription
of
an
army
of
equal
strength,
and
it
is
doubtful
if
that
could
have
been
accomplished
without
dic-
tation
and
control.
Democracy
and
high
moral
purpose
have
not
yet
found
the
an-
swer,
short
of
force,
to
the
challenge
of
the
unscrupulous
and
violent
messianism
of
the
Soviets.
OSCAR
I.
JANOWSKY
The
City
College
of
New
York
PERLO,
VICTOR.
American
Imperialism.
Pp.
256.
New
York:
International
Pub-
lishers,
1951.
$2.75.
Take
the
technique
of
the
Big
Lie
(the
bigger,
the
more
readily
believed,
said
Hitler).
Mix
in
a
proper
proportion
of
history
from
which
the
real
substance
has
been
wrung
and
into
which
a
prearranged
spurious
substitute
has
been
injected.
Load
it
heavily
with
&dquo;fitting&dquo;
documenta-
tion
to
give
weight
to
the
resultant
peace-
is-war
gobbledegook.
The
product
is
Kremlin
double
talk,
of
which
the
rantings
of
Malik
and
Vishinsky
before
the
United
Nations
are
examples.
Another
example
is
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