Current Literature
THE STATES OF EUROPE, 1815-1871 By R. B. Mowat --
European politics have a vital significance for us, but are not truly comprehensible without some knowledge of European history for at least a hundred years. Though it has a good many recent rivals, Professor Mowat's new book on The ;States of Europe, 1815-1871 (Arnold, 18s.) is to be welcomed as a concise and trustworthy account of the period from Waterloo to the Treaty of Frankfort which marked the triumph of Bismarck and Prussia. Professor Mowat imparts freshness to a well-worn theme by his abundant and apt quotations from despatches and memoirs and by his own shrewd comments on the great men of that epoch of nationalism and liberalism. His account of Bismarck's policy is especially clear and his criticism of it is sound. The Iron Chancellor's dislike of Parliamentary institutions left Germany after his fall without any check on the Emperor and the General Staff and was the ultimate cause of the War and its disasters.
Previous page
