Book Reviews and Notices : The Idea of Progress: A Collection of Readings. By FREDERICK J. TEGGART. Introduction by GEORGE H. HILDEBRAND. (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1949. Revised Edition. Pp. xi, 457. $6.00.)
Author | Luis Recasens-Siches |
Published date | 01 March 1951 |
Date | 01 March 1951 |
DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/106591295100400123 |
Subject Matter | Articles |
140
A Diplomatic History of the United States. By SAMUEL FLAGG BEMIS.
(New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1950. Third Edition. Pp.
xiv, 994. $5.75.)
Most students of American history and government are already f amil-
iar with the first two editions (1936 and 1942) of this excellent survey of
the diplomatic relations of the United States. The organization of the
work, its literary style, the accurate presentation of facts and, above all, the
keen interpretation of those facts, have long since established it as a
leading text and general source of information in the field of American
diplomacy.
The present edition of this work includes two new chapters to cover
American diplomacy during and after World War II. In these chap-
ters, Professor Bemis, besides using official documentary material, draws
rather heavily from such works as Hull’s Memoirs, Sherwood’s Roosevelt
and Hopkins, Eisenhower’s Crusade in Europe, and Byrnes’ Speaking
Frankly. The author seems to possess almost prophetic insight in his
portrayal of the &dquo;Big Three&dquo; conferences and the subsequent American.
Russian relations.
For a one,volume survey of our diplomatic history from the earliest
beginnings to the present time, this book is unexcelled.
DAVID E. MILLER.
University of Utah.
The Idea of Progress: A Collection of Readings. By FREDERICK J. TEGGART.
Introduction by GEORGE H. HILDEBRAND. (Berkeley: University of
California Press. 1949. Revised Edition. Pp. xi, 457. $6.00.)
History is as old as man and is also very old as a relation of human
facts. The full philosophic consciousness of history, however, does not
appear until the nineteenth century, although there were a few writers,
Juan Bautista Vico in particular, who foreshadowed it. We find medi,
tations upon history written in many previous centuries; but in such works
history is not generally conceived strictly as history-as diversity and as
change-but rather as the rationalization of an existing prejudice. Historic
varieties and changes were considered the fruit of a degeneration of nature
which, having lost its purity, and abandoned goodness, justice, and truth;
or else history was interpreted as progressive evolution toward the real-
ization of absolute ideals of...
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