Book Reviews and Notices : Twentieth Century Empire. BY H. V. HODSON. (London: Faber & Faber. 1948. Pp. 186. 15s. )

• Author: L.C. Green
• Date: 01 September 1948
• DOI: 10.1177/106591294800100324
• Published date: 01 September 1948
• Subject Matter: Articles

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tice who, for professional reasons, must remain anonymous.&dquo; This is a pity
-it would be a pleasure to give credit in this fashion where very consider-
able credit is due.
The textual material in the pamphlet is divided into two parts (&dquo;The
Draft Constitution&dquo; and &dquo;The Final Phase&dquo;) of six and three chapters, res-
pectively. Narrative developments are discussed through 1946. Appendices
include several tables dealing with party voting strength and legislative or-
ganization, the texts of the draft constitution rejected in May, 1946, and the
constitution approved in November of the same year, as well as other mat-
ters. Documentation is entirely from French sources, especially the reports
of the Assemblée Consultative and the Journal Officiel.
It would have been easy for the author to have contented himself with
an analysis of the provisions in the two constitutions and a superficial con-
sideration of the party pronouncements at various stages. Rather than that,
however, he gives a notable summary of the intricate and often subtle con-
flict of party positions and maneuvering. The Communists, Socialists, MRP,
Radical Socialists, and others are put in proper perspective and the impact
of personalities on party decisions and policies is well discussed. An impor-
tant innovation, at least ostensibly, in the post-war constitutional arrange-
ments of France is the new relationship of the empire to the metropolitan
area. That, too, the author discusses expertly.
It is studies of this sort which provide the grist from which later text-
book writers will compose their more adequate presentations of the post-war
scene. We
need more of them.
RUSSELL H. FITZGIBBON.
University of California at Los Angeles.
Twentieth Century Empire
.
BY H. V. HODSON. (London: Faber & Faber.
1948. Pp. 186. 15s. )
The assistant-editor of the Sunday Times has set out to estimate the rôle
of the British Commonwealth in a world in which a State to qualify as a
Great...