LEE, DWIGHT E. Ten Years: The World on Its Way to War, 1930-1940. Pp. xviii, 443. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1942. $3.75

• Date: 01 May 1942
• Author: Joseph S. Roucek
• DOI: 10.1177/000271624222100138
• Published date: 01 May 1942
• Subject Matter: Articles

202

worthy

of

very

high

praise,&dquo;

lies

in

the

light

it

sheds

upon

the

degree

that

the

dis-

integration

had

already

reached

on

the

eve

of

the

last

war.

Unfortunately,

one

nowhere

gains

the

impression

that

the

author

is

as

familiar

with

what

the

French

call

the

climat

of

events

as

she

is

with

the

printed

sources

and

official

documents.

Newspapers

are

a

particularly

doubtful

foundation

on

which

to

build

judgments

of

events

in

a

country

like

France,

with

its

time-honored

technique

of

controlling

and

corrupting

the

press

through

direct

and

indirect

governmental

subventions.

The

result

is,

therefore,

a

competent

analysis

of

the

sources

afforded

by

newspapers

and

a

fair

digest

of

facts,

but

there

is

hardly

any

attempt

to

give

the

deeper

reason

for

the

progressive

decay

of

the

parliamentary

democracy

of

the

Third

Republic.

There

are

a

great

number

of

smaller

mistakes

and

inaccuracies,

chiefly

due

to

the

obvious

lack

of

personal

observation

and

knowledge

of

the

French

scene

which

the

book

describes.

For

instance,

the

work-

ers

organized

in

the

C.G.T.

are

not

&dquo;syn-

dicalists&dquo;

but

trade

unionists,

the

word

&dquo;syndicalist&dquo;

having

a

special

connotation

of

action

directe

in

the

history

of

the

Euro-

pean

trade-union

movement;

the

ultimatum

to

Serbia

in

July

1914

was

not’an

Austrian

note,

but

an

Austro-Hungarian

one;

it

was

not

accepted

&dquo;provisionally&dquo;

by

Serbia,

but

incompletely;

the

declaration

of

French

mobilization

did

not

say

that

France

was

&dquo;pacifist

and

determined,&dquo;

but

pacific

and

determined;

and

so

forth.

The

book

on

the

decline of

French

de-

mocracy

has

still

to

be

written.

It

must

begin

far

earlier

and

certainly

not

later

than

the

Dreyfus

scandal,

which

consti-

tuted

a

Pyrrhic

victory

for

French

democ-

racy.

EGON

RANSHOFEN-WERTHEIMER

American

University

LEE,

DWIGHT

E.

Ten

Years:

The

World

on

Its

Way

to

War,

1930-1940.

Pp.

xviii,

443.

Boston:

Houghton

Mifflin

Co.,

1942.

$3.75.

&dquo;The

World

on

Its

Way

to

War

1930-

1940&dquo;

is

a

significant

subtitle

of

this

sur-

vey

of

European

international

affairs.

Other

surveys

dealing

with

much

the

same

period,

together

with

at

least

a

score

of

books

by

journalists

and

statesmen.

having

intimate

knowledge

of

recent

happenings,

have

been

published.

With

one

or

two

exceptions,

however,

the

one-volume

surveys

have

at-

tempted

to

cover

a

longer

chronological

pe-

riod

than

the

last

decade,

and

have

thus

gone

less

deeply

into

it,

while

some

of

them

and

most

of

the

memoirs

or

diaries

of

statesmen

and

journalists

are

characterized

by

a

lack

either

of

historical

perspective

or

of

personal

detachment

from

the

absorbing

events

they

recount.

Here

the

author

has

attempted

to

fit

the

variegated

pieces

of

material

into

a

mosaic

that

reveals

at

the

same

time

much

of

the

detail

and

a

com-

prehensible

pattern.

His

interpretation

is

that

the

events

of

1930-40

are

in

part

the

result

of

a

long

historical

development,

and

that

the

acts

of

politicians

and

peoples

are

not

on

the

one

hand

purely

capricious,

nor

on

the

other

determined

solely

by

economic

factors

or

by

any

one

factor,

but

by

many,

including

intellectual

and

spiritual

influ-

ences.

Lee

is

also

convinced

that

democ-

racy

as

a

way

of

life

is

still

the

best of

which

we

know,

in

spite

of

the

failure

of

the

democracies

to

live

up

to

their

re-

sponsibilities.

Furthermore,

&dquo;if

there

is

to

be

peace

and

security

again

on

this

earth

within

an

appreciable

limit

of

time,

not

only

must

the

peoples

of

Europe

work

together,

but

also

the

United

States

must

learn

to

work

with

them,

for

all

face

fundamentally

the

same

problems.&dquo;

It

is

obvious

that

Lee’s

task

has

required

both

scholarship

arid

imagination

to

piece

together

the

extant

bits

of

information

into

this

full-length

portrait

of

Europe’s

history

during

the

last

decade.

One

may

agree

or,

in

certain

points,

disagree

with

Lee’s

inter-

pretations ;

one

must

admit,

however,

that,

historically

speaking,

this

is

an

excellent

book,

and,

artistically

speaking,

a

brilliant

and

highly

impressive

piece

of

writing

which

holds

one’s

attention

from

beginning

to

end.

It

is,

for

instance,

quite

doubtful,

as

far

as

the

reviewer

is

concerned,

that

the

&dquo;Ger-

man

people

accepted

Hitlerism

because

of

external

conditions

rather

than

because

of

any

internal

canker

in

the

soul of

Luther’s

and

Goethe’s

race&dquo;

(p.

38).

This

assump-

tion

is

contrary

to

the

conclusions

reached,

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