Richard H. Heindel

John P. Diggins. Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America. Pp. xx, 524. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972.

This superb, sophisticated volume is modestly called &dquo;an exercise in perspectives.&dquo; I can attest that such cross-cultural, broad-gauged interweaving of events and opinions and values is an &dquo;organizational nightmare,&dquo; a phrase used by Professor Diggins of the history department at the University of California at Irvine, who has in my opinion achieved an excellent narrative flow in seventeen chapters-from the American view of pre-Mussolini Italy, Mussolini as American hero, American society and Fascism, and on to Fascism at war. Whether you are particularly interested in the subject or not, I believe you will enjoy this real addition to a kind of American intellectual and &dquo;transnational&dquo;

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parture of the Soviet experts to teach the Chinese atomic secrets remains nothing more than a guess. Reminiscent of Mussolini’s making the trains run on time, the Communists, according to the author, have made &dquo;one of the world’s cleanest countries out of one of the world’s dirtiest.&dquo; He summarizes the achievements of Mao Tse-tung in the following four ways: (1) he taught the people to read, write, and count; (2) he did away with unemployment-largely through forced labor; (3) he guaranteed at least a minimum existence for the Chinese

Y. C. Wang. Chinese Intellectuals and the West, 1872-1949. Pp. xiv, 557. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966.

occurs several hundred times in the book, yet no serious effort is made to identify and evaluate the various forces of historical tradition, nationalism, self-interest, and so on, which work alongside and modify the Marxian ideology. All this hardly facilitates comprehension of the nature of the changes which have been taking place in what was once the Communist world. The Russians and the Chinese are both Marxists, but the Catholics and the Protestants in the sixteenth century were both Christians. The Russians and the Chinese both assert their anxiety to convert the heathen to the true faith and to spread that faith throughout the world. The Catholics and the Protestants did the same in the sixteenth century. One cannot identify the effective priorities of policy merely by quoting doctrinal statements. Thus, the Turks in 1584 would certainly not be able to find any quotations concerning the possibility of co-existence between the Moslem and Christian worlds, yet, in fact, the crusades were a thing of the past, and the hatred of the rival Christian groups for one another took priority over their other

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a given offense can be equated with a predetermined amount of punishment. Revenge, appeasement of a tribal god, expiation, satisfaction of an abstract principle, represent evolutionary stages of the theory of retribution. But having outgrown the theory of retribution, man in his attempt to rationalize his animal craving for vengeance on those who offend developed the idea that the infliction of pain or the deprivation of privilege possesses a magical virtue in itself, cleansing those vho have

HENRI TAJFEL and JOHN L. DAWSON (Eds.). Disappointed Guests: Essays by African, Asian, and West Indian Students. Pp. vii, 158. New York: Oxford University Press, under the auspices of the Institute of Race Relations, London, 1965.

This simple, straightforward compilation is held together with hope. It is couched in a constructive journalism which reports, wherever possible from a wide arena of activities, the spirit in confronting &dquo;all-powerful materialism.&dquo;’ The hope is meant to be a personal challenge. It is difficult to know the precise audience for this volume, but it would be a pity if the volume’s simplicity were mistaken for inadequate analysis. The concluding program of action recommended by the distinguished editor of the Christian Science Monitor does not

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new light will thus be thrown on the history of his period, as well as on the mind and personality of Jefferson, cannot yet be fully appreciated. But the editors offer a clue, quantitatively at least, in their statement that previous selections have included only one-third of the more than eighteen thousand letters written by Jefferson himself and only one-fifteenth of the still larger correspondence addressed to him. The opening volume, covering the years from 1760 to 1776, transports the reader through the experiences of an eighteenyear-old youth, who wished to &dquo;pursue my Studies in the Greek and Latin ... and likewise learn something of Mathematics&dquo; to the thirty-four-year-old man who drafted the Declaration o f Independence. Some of the celebrated Jeffersonian characteristics are well attested in this volume-the

INNIS, HAROLD A. Changing Concepts of Time. Pp. vii, 142. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1952.

a choice between two general averages but rather, for example, between his family farm in Ireland and selected occupations in the particular quarter of New York or Boston where his relatives and friends happen to be located. Differences in general levels determine only in the broadest way the propensity to migrate. Isaac’s formal treatment of incentives would have been enriched by more mature acquaintance with such descriptions of past migrations as Marcus Lee Hansen’s The Great Atlantic Migration. It is clear that Isaac is more familiar with current economic

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WAKEFIELD, HAROLD. New Paths for Japan. Pp. viii, 223. New York: Oxford University Press under the auspices of the Institute of Pacific Relations and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1948.

CANHAM, ERWIN D., together with members of the staff of the Christian Science Monitor. Awakening: The World at Mid-Century. Pp. x, 209. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1951.

3.75. This survey well summarizes the outstanding political, economic, and social happenings in Japan under Allied occupation. However, in order to provide the average reader with sufficient background material, entirely too much space is devoted to old instead of new paths, and the story of recent events reads like a Reader’s Digest of newspaper articles. The main conclusions that &dquo;Japan’s recovery will necessarily be slow and the Allies could delay it indefinitely from confused motives of security, reparation claims and fear of competition,&dquo; that &dquo;the American vision for Japan can be fulfilled only by granting her freedom to reject the American example,&dquo; and that &dquo;new patterns of life will have to be adjusted to the traditional basis of Japanese culture&dquo; are eminently reasonable if not startling; but the role of Christianity in the process of reconstruction is exaggerated. The best chapters are those dealing with economics and education, but these are unfortunately too brief. In discussing the

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1948.