Book Reviews and Notices : The World in the Twentieth Century. BY GEOFFREY BRUUN. (Boston: D. C. Heath and Company. 1948. Pp. xxiv, 799. $5.50.)

• DOI: 10.1177/106591294900200419
• Date: 01 December 1949
• Published date: 01 December 1949
• Author: George A. Lipsky
• Subject Matter: Articles

637

The

World

in

the

Twentieth

Century.

BY

GEOFFREY

BRUUN.

(Boston:

D.

C.

Heath

and

Company.

1948.

Pp.

xxiv,

799.

$5.50.)

Professor

Bruun

has

written

a

textbook

that

is

at

the

same

time

some-

thing

more

than

a

textbook.

For

he

brings

to

bear

upon

his

materials

a

soundly

sophisticated

and

comprehending

mind

that

is

revealed

in

his

selection

and

use

of

data.

The

work

follows

a

conventional

chronological

and

topical

outline.

Part

I

deals

with

the

distant

period

before

World

War

I,

so

pregnant

with

disaster,

concerning

the

origin

and

conception

of

which

the

author

shows

great

understanding.

In

Part

II

the

vast

political,

economic,

and

military

web

of

World

War

I

is

graphically

and

expertly

described.

And

so

throughout

the

subsequent

parts

on

the

post-World

War

I

search

for

international

stability,

the

Americas

in

the

Twentieth

Century,

the

U.S.S.R.

and

its

orbit

states,

the

Asiatic

and

Pacific

World,

experiments

in

government,

the

failure

of

collective

security,

World

War

II,

the

contemporary

world,

and

western

culture

in

the

twentieth

century

the

author

reveals

a

distinguished

erudition

and

a

usually

balanced

judg-

ment.

He

could

easily

have

boldly

announced

in

the

foreword

that

he

was

writing

under

the

influence

of

a

liberal,

progressive

bias

after

the

fashion

of

Parrington,

but

the

avowal

is

not

necessary.

The

fact

is

self-evident.

This

liberal

approach

is

refreshing

for

the

most

part,

but

Professor .

Bruun,

like

Frederick

L.

Schuman

and

Harold

Laski,

seems

to

be

of

that

persuasion

for

which

an

explicit

condemnation

of

the

brutalities

of

Soviet

authoritarianism

takes

on

a

quality

of

illiberalism.

Every

allusion

to

the

nature

of

the

Soviet

regime,

which

no

bona

fide

empirical

liberal

or

demo-

crat

may

accept,

must

be

hedged

around

with

explanations

of

why

and

how

external

force

and

internal

crisis

have

driven

this

government

to

the

use

of

tyranical

means.

This

constant

impulse

to

indirect

apology

no

doubt

derives

from

an

idealistic

determination

to

maintain

the

remnants

of

the

illusions

which

were

so

fondly

held

during

the

1920’s

and

1930’s.

Then

verily

the

Soviet

regime

seemed

to

some

to

be

an

utopia

struggling

to

be

born.

The

impulse

derives

also

from

a

certain

warping

of

historical

sense

that

in

significant

degree

overlooks

the

capacity

of

the

evolving

west-

ern

political

tradition

by

self-corrective

means

to

remedy

its

own

defects.

It

offers

to

these

disciples

of

reform,

educated

to

dissatisfaction

with

the

inequities

that

evolution

may

leave

behind,

not

enough

by

way

of

con-

trast

with

the

Soviet

system.

The

impulse

comes

also

from

a

failure

to

realize

that

to

place

Sovietism

at

another

point

on

the

continuum

of

political

values

and

means

from

Nazism

is

not

to

place

it

at

a

point

jus,

tifying

liberal

democrats

in

a

course

of

reckless,

if

indirect,

apology.

That

Professor

Bruun

deals

with

the

Soviet

state

apologetically

can

not

be

de-

nied,

that

he

does

so

with

sweeter

temper

than

Professor

Schuman

perhaps

makes

the

result

only

the

more

dangerous.

Should

the

plea

be

made

that