Commonwealth of Nations

• Author: Henry M. Wriston
• DOI: 10.1177/000271625530000160
• Published date: 01 July 1955
• Date: 01 July 1955
• Subject Matter: Articles

164

is

reduced

by

the

whole

tone

of

the

volume

-by

the

writers’

recognition

of

the

prob-

lem-raising

and

question-asking

character

of

the

historical

enterprise.

This

is

a

re-

warding

book

for

any

reader

willing

to

de-

vote

time

to

its

careful

perusal.

WILLSON

H.

COATES

University

of

Rochester

COMMONWEALTH

OF

NATIONS

P.

A.

REYNOLDS.

British

Foreign

Policy

in

the

Inter-War

Years.

Pp.

xi,

182.

New

York:

Longmans,

Green,

and

Com-

pany,

1954.

$2.25.

British

Foreign

Policy

in

the

Inter-War

Years

by

P.

A.

Reynolds

is

wholly

unpre-

tentious.

It

was

designed

as

a

textbook

and

conforms

to

the better

tradition

of

such

writing.

The

style

is

lucid

and

un-

cluttered ;

the

sentences

are

explicit,

and

statements

are

made

without

hedging.

The

author

is

given

to

recapitulations

and

sum-

maries

at

frequent

intervals,

as

one

does

in

a

good

textbook.

In

the

front

there

is

a

chronology

for

ready

reference

or

for

memorization.

At

the

end

a

bibliography

carries

some

critical

comment;

nearly

all

the

books

mentioned

are

in

English,

a

few

in

French

(mostly

memoirs),

and

none

in

any

other

language.

The

volume

makes

no

pretense

at

originality

of

interpretation

or

point

of

view

and

is

itself

heavily

depend-

ent

upon

secondary

works.

There

is

virtu-

ally

no

reliance

upon

documents,

except

on

those

which

have

been

published

by

the

British

or

American

government

or

by

Chatham

House.

The

account

takes

for

its

major

premise

the

decline

in

the

position

of

the

United

Kingdom

after

World

War

I-economi-

cally,

politically,

and

strategically.

This

decline

is

attributed

to

the

loss

of

Great

Britain’s

industrial

pre-eminence,

the

weak-

ening

of

its

political

position

as

a

conse-

quence

of

the

enhanced

status

of

the

Do-

minions

within the

Commonwealth,

and

the

growth

of

nationalism

and

anti-colonial-

ism

in

the

colonies.

The

strategic

position

of

Britain

had

been

undermined

by

the

de-

velopment

of

new

weapons,

the

shrinkage

of

the

globe.

The

author

emphasizes

that

despite

its

changed

status

the

basic

objec-

tives

of

Britain’s

foreign

policy-command

of

the

seas

and

a

balance

of

power

in

Eu-

rope-remained

unchanged;

they

were

in-

deed

intensified.

But

command

of

the

seas

had

to

be

shared

with

the

United

States,

and

the

effort

to

produce

a

balance

in

Eu-

rope

led

to

sharp

differences

in

policy

be-

tween

Britain

and

France.

&dquo;The

most

dis-

astrous

feature

of

British

policy

in

the

inter-war

years

was

the

rigidity

with

which

an

understandable

policy

of

caution

to-

wards

widely

conceived

collective

security

in

the

’twenties

was

pursued

and

intensified

in

the

’thirties ...

to

the

point

of

sur-

render

of

one

of

her

traditional

aims-the

prevention

of

mastery

of

the

Continent

by

a

single

power.&dquo;

The

disappearance

of

the

United

States

from

the

tripartite

guarantee

among

France,

Britain,

and

the

United

States

led

to

Britain’s

abandonment

of

this

guarantee;

the

lack of

an

Anglo-French

alliance

dominated

French

policy

and,

in

a

sense,

dominated

world

politics

between

the

two

wars.

Lack

of

cohesion

among

those

three

opened

the

way

for

Hitler

and

the

Japanese

jingoes.

The

book

is

admirably

adapted

to

the

audience

for

which

it

was

intended,

and

for

the

general

reader

who

wants

a

clear,

brief

survey.

HENRY

M.

WRISTON

Brown

University

GEORGE

HARRIS

HEALEY

(Ed.).

The

Let-

ters

of

Daniel

Defoe.

Pp.

xxii,

506.

Oxford:

The

Clarendon

Press,

1955.

(Distributed

by

the

Oxford

University

Press,

New

York.)

$6.75.

These

251

letters

of

Daniel

Defoe

rep-

resent

all

of

the

known

extant

letters

of

that

prolific

writer.

Most

of

the

letters

have

already

been

published

either

in

the

Historical

Manuscripts

Commission’s

Re-

port

on

the

Manuscripts

of

His

Grace

the

Duke

of

Portland,

or

elsewhere.

Notwith-

standing,

Professor

Healey

has

done

a

real

service

in

bringing

all

of

the

letters

to-

gether

and

in

providing

clean

and

well-

edited

texts

of

them.

Defoe

was

the

au-

thor

of

235

letters,

while

the

additional

six-

teen

were

addressed

to

him.