. A Welcome New History
A History of the English People. By R. J. Mitchell and M. D. R. Leys. (Longmans. 27s. 6d.)
THIS is a delightful book. It is also a very able book, simple and sincere. Much skill and thought have gone to the making of it, and the reader will, if he is wise, just take it as it is ; for this is one of those rare books that 'can and should be left to take care of themselves.
The publishers of A History of the English People are also the publishers of the Master of Trinity's Social History., They saw that there was room for both. The later book does not invite comparison with Dr. Trevelyan's famous work. It , stands by itself in its own right. Its authors have deliberately left out so much that one is inclined to wonder at first that so much remains for them to say. "As far as possible," they tell us, they "have left out everything that is -already des- cribed in:good and accessible books." They say nothing about the technicalities of agriculture, little about costume, pictures and music. "Literature is treated chiefly as a quarry for material concerning daily life." These intelligent women set out to answer questions which people like to ask. They assumed a general knowledge of English history, and thought of the things which loomed large in the lives of ordinary folk ; and, though they have doubtless left much unsaid, this book fills six hundred pages. They began in the New Stone Age and stopped at the end of the nineteenth century. They added a postscript "pointing to the more significant develop- ments of the deceptively quiet opening years of the twentieth century."
The postcript begins with entertainment, then proceeds, under the heading" Homes and Children.," to the passion for collecting, the hire-purchase system, labour-saving devices, the servant problem, new schools and educational experi- ments, the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. In a third section, on men and women, the position of women, health insurance and adult education are described, not as " movements " but as expressions of simple desires. The motor-car appears in a final section on life in the open air and the traditions of the countryside. The opening words of the last paragraph suggest how human interest of a significant kind is sustained in every page of this long book :— "Motor-cars were beginning, too, though a few old coach , horses still ran in remoter districts. The coming of the country bus that made it possible for country women to reach a market-town for shopping, and for the young people to flock in for dancing and the cinema, made an enormous difference to village life, and linked up hamlets only a few miles apart whose inhabitants might never have seen one another."
And, if we turn to the prologue, on food and farming, homes and families, trade, travel and pillage, and the arts, from the New Stone Age to the Norman Conquest, we find exactly the same note of quiet and intimate appreciation, so that any sense of historical outrage at the merging of Anglo-Saxon civilisation into the life of neolithic man is soothed. After all, the neolithic revolution was "the greatest of those economic changes that have turned the course of man's destiny." The Roman occupation and early English developments acquire a fresh meaning as, within the scope of the writer's intention, they are brought into line with the making of fire and the discovery of cooking and the beginnings of organised society.
The body of the book is divided into four parts, each con- taining from four to six chapters dealing with groups of related theses. Thus the second chapter of Book III (Tudor and Stuart England) is entitled "Medicine and Hygiene" and comprehends seven subjects—medical theory and practice, some prescriptions, plague, hospitals, bathing and spas, toilet, smoking and snuff-taking. The material has obviously been chosen with care, and is used to convey a clear and living impression. The authors have contrived to avoid the traps into which they might easily have fallen. They are faithful to their. purpose. We are neither given bundles of miscel- laneous information nor taken on a descriptive tour through the rooms of a museum. Having made their choice of theme, they try to convey to others the pleasure which they have found themselves, • without any sententious or imaginative embellishments. Although they deliberately avoid moral judgement and historical generalities, they are shrewd and sometimes penetrating commentators on the changing scenes which they reveal. They make their reader forget the limitations which they impose upon themselves, for these very restraints have kept them free to move happily at ease within them.
The book contains several plates and illustrations in the text relevant to the themes and MI excellent subject index. There are four end-paper maps of archaeological sites, towns and villages, churches and religious houses, castles and houses ; these, I think, need revision.
F. M. POWIC1C.E.
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