THE BALKAN PENINSULA AND THE NEAR EAST. By Ferdinand Schevill.
(G. Bell and Sons. 20s. net.) Professor Schevill, of the University of Chicago, writes with all the dignity of the historian who is conscious of a specialized knowledge and unimpeachable accuracy. But his history of the Balkans is not uninteresting, as such integrity might seem to imply. If his aim is not Sir Anthony Hope's, he plunges us into situations almost as exciting and a whirlpool of intrigue thicker than the novelistic mind could cope with. Balkan politics are still one of the chief storm-centres in the inter- national situation, and Professor Schevill treats of the prob- lems they have given birth to, not merely theoretically, but in the context of their historical development. His book is a history of the Peninsula from the earliest times to the present day. He deals briefly with the Hellenic and Roman periods, more amply with the four centuries of Turkish rule, and thoroughly with the Liberation movements of the last fifty years. His chapters on the Great War and the Peace, in their relation to Balkan affairs, are up to date in their infor- mation and balanced in their judgments, and his short narra- tive of the foundation of the Rumanian State is an adequate explanatory background for the recent dynastic events in that country. There is a good physical map of the Peninsula in the volume, and the marginal paragraph-descriptions add convenience to its value as a text-book.
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