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REVIEWS OF BOOKS

Outlines of Greek History, with a Survey of Ancient Oriental Nations. By WILLIAM C. MOREY, Ph.D., D.C.L. (New York: The American Book Company. 1903. Pp. 378.)

AMID the hosts of text-books which are crowding upon us each newcomer finds it more and more difficult to justify its appearance. Yet, notwithstanding the multiplicity of its rivals, Mr. Morey's little book should make a place for itself. Intended, in connection with his Outlines of Roman History, to provide a complete course in ancient history', the present work exhibits in general the same merits for which the earlier was conspicuous nice discrimination in the selection of relevant material, balance and proportion in arrangement, and clearness and simplicity in presentation. Although the author's primary aim is the instruction of the uninitiated youth, he shows himself to be au courant with the views of the most reliable recent writers, at least when they are accessible in English, for it is not so clear that he has made use of Beloch and Busolt.

The rather kaleidoscopic survey of oriental nations contains helpful generalizations concerning the various peoples touched upon, although the names of many of the persons and institutions, which doubtless have to be mentioned, will be difficult and confusing to the young reader. In dealing with the Greek people, whose history naturally occupies the bulk of the work, the author keeps steadily in view the aim of choosing such facts as will illustrate their peculiar characteristics and their contributions to posterity in the political field their capacity for developing free local institutions and their inability to weld themselves into a national union; in the non-political field their unique achievements in art, literature, philosophy, and science. The periodic surveys of Greek life and thought are particularly to be commended. The amount of space devoted to them necessitates a corresponding curtailment in the account of political and military affairs; for instance, a detailed picture of Athenian life and thought in the Periclean age is followed by the briefest outline of the events of the Peloponnesian war, a division which some even of the more recent writers with Thucydides before them have shrunk from; epoch-making battles like Salamis and Platea are dismissed with a bare mention, although accompanying diagrams help to supply the deficiency in the text. This pardonable brevity, however, involves the omission of some helpful considerations; for example, the rivalry of Athens and Corinth for the control of the western sea-route as a factor in determining the decision of the former with regard to Corcyra; Sparta's stupidity in destroying the Chalcidian league, a useful buffer against the Macedonian advance; or, to go further afield, Bury's suggestive conjec

tures on the limitations of existing geographical knowledge as a justification for Alexander's extreme eastern conquests. Moreover, the rise of Macedon and the period of the Roman intervention are covered in too summary a fashion.

Naturally in a book of this character it is possible to challenge, or at least to question, many of the statements. To cite a few examples: p. 81, it has been thought that the migrations to the eastern Ægean began even before the Dorian conquest of the Peloponnesus; p. 84, Busolt shows good reason for questioning the customary view that the Phoenicians founded Thebes; p. 90, there were not only one but two systems of writing in Crete; p. 93, possibly the oriental influence on Mycenaean art is too much emphasized; p. 100, Hesiod should have been mentioned with Homer as a formative influence on Greek religion; p. 128, in stating that Solon is said to have visited Croesus, although some writers now believe it possible, no mention is made of the difficulty of reconciling the traditional dates; p. 130, doubt has been recently cast upon the twofold expulsion of Pisistratus; p. 151, it is not stated that the original center of the Amphictyonic league was at Anthela and that the league continued to hold one of its annual meetings there after it began to meet at Delphi; p. 174, the traditional story of Histiæus's share in instigating the Ionian revolt is omitted without reason; p. 226, the list of liturgies is not complete; p. 232, it is not clear from the text whether one or two older temples preceded the Erechtheum there described; p. 252, it is at least an open question whether members of the Athenian Assembly were paid under Pericles; p. 284, the tyrant Gelon might at least have been mentioned; p. 288, the Hellenica goes further than the close of the Peloponnesian war; p. 307, the extent of Aristotle's influence on Alexander has been questioned. Many teachers will welcome the long-sanctioned usage of spelling Greek names in the Romanized The maps are frequent and helpful, and the classified bibliography is reasonably ample and well-chosen, though it hardly seems that Lawton's useful little Introduction to Classical Greek Literature appeared too late for insertion.

ARTHUR LYON CROSS.

History of the Moorish Empire in Europe. By S. P. ScoтT. (Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1904. Three vols., pp. xlii, 761; ix, 686; ix, 696.)

A SATISFYING history of the Muslim dominion in Spain has been long awaited both by the historical student and by the general reader. It is likely to be awaited still. Mr. Scott's three volumes are obviously the result of conscientious and comprehensive reading in some half-dozen languages, but their author lacks the historical temperament. His work, though not without a certain old-fashioned dignity of style, is too monotonous to be popular and too uncritical in its affirmations to content the trained student of history. It seems a pity that after covering thirty-seven

pages with a list of the authorities consulted in constructing his book he should be unwilling to tell us in a single foot-note the source of any specific statement. One does not like to be captious in the case of a scholar who has devoted twenty years to his task, but as he declines to supply us with citations by which his statements may be tested, it is not unfair, perhaps, to estimate the accuracy of his scholarship by the asseverations of various sorts which find expression in these pages. There is not much excuse nowadays, for example, to locate "the Ophir of Holy Writ" (I, 134) in northern Africa, nor is it exact to refer to Arabia as the only country "accessible to the ambition of the powerful sovereigns of antiquity" that "escaped the humiliation of conquest" (I, 10), since both Esarhaddon and Asurbanipal conquered the region, though they did not long control it. His reference to the Berbers as an "undoubtedly Semitic race" (I, 136) would not satisfy most modern ethnologists, nor can we understand the mental process of a close student of this particular group of the families of mankind who attributes to the Semites "an extraordinary capacity for political organization" (I, 15). If there is any quality notably absent in the Semitic race, we should have said that it is that of political discipline. The author's whole work is a complete refutation of this assertion, for the collapse of the Arab power- as he takes pains to insist was everywhere more the result of their racial incapacity to rise above the political conceptions of the tribal state than of superior ability or bravery on the part of their foes. In illustration of this nothing could be more apt than his criticism of the policy of a king's arbitrary selection of his successor, a policy sanctioned by Mohammedan custom, and in no trifling degree responsible for the Western Khalifate's ultimate overthrow". "In this respect', he adds, "its history is but the counterpart of every other Moslem power. The ideas dominating the various constituents of the society of Islam were incompatible with either the just subordination of classes or the permanence of empire."

The main contention supported in Mr. Scott's elaborate thesis is that the conquest of Spain and its recovery by Europeans was a struggle between civilizations rather than between races or religions. The Gothic Christians went down in the eighth century before a higher type of culture, better fitted to fight and live off the soil. The causes of their ultimate success against the Muslims lay, first, in the evolution of a national group formed of Goths, Iberians, and Basques welded into one by the pressure of defeat and the need of union against a common enemy; second, in the introduction of feudalism, by which the new group secured a serviceable system of government; and third, in the disintegration apparently inevitable among Arab communities. The process was very slow. The Asturian kingdom and the Gothic march became the scenes of incessant incursions with varying results, but they bred at last a race of indefatigable warriors who gradually acquired their lessons of obedience and discipline. The nation thus engendered succeeded at length through the exercise of its one great quality, persistency, in extirpating a race intellectually and economically its superior. Its victory and the result

ing loss to civilization and humanity the author considers an unmitigated misfortune. Since the Spaniards would learn nothing from their hated enemy, the finest culture of the middle ages expired without transmitting to semibarbarous Europe anything more than a faint trace of its acquirements and intellectual energy. From the moment of her supreme effort Spain has remained supine and inept, unwilling to change, an incumbrance upon the states of Christendom. It has been the triumph of an

inferior over a superior civilization.

66

This view, while not entirely novel, differs from that of European historians in making little of race as a factor in the result and in denying to Christianity any real influence whatever in the operation. Both Teutonic and Semitic groups, we are told, "traced their lineage to tribes steeped in barbarism and idolatry", but while the former persisted in the poverty, ignorance, and ferocity of its ancestors the latter became possessed of accomplishments that rendered it opulent, polished and dissolute beyond all example, but eventually and inevitably enervated and decadent". Why? The anthropological side of the problem does not appear to interest the author. In his attitude toward the Christian church, however, he shows a mighty earnestness, not to say contentiousness of tone. It is quite time that the West should be made aware of certain superior features in Oriental civilization and of the truculence and bigotry of medieval priests, but to exalt the Arab mind above all others in capacity for improvement and to deny to the institution of Christianity a single saving grace during seven centuries is excessive. Every student is entitled to his own point of view, but it would be hard to justify such lapses in tone and temper as are to be found in this narrative or to forgive the author the extravagance of his praise of the Moors. In these essential items he himself lies subject to the charge of lacking in philosophical discrimination which he brings against the "illiterate annalists" of the Latin priesthood.

The scope of Mr. Scott's work is amply inclusive. Two volumes cover the whole period of Moorish occupation in the peninsula, while the third contains kulturgeschichtliche material of some interest and value. This is brought forward in the form of a series of essays on the arts, institutions, and influence of the Muslims, as well as on the Jews and the Moriscoes in Spain. There is evidence of plenty of learning, but here again we may perhaps be pardoned for wishing to know the authorities consulted by an author who calmly declares his conviction that "no achievement of ancient or modern times was perfected with such rapidity or produced such decided effects upon the intellectual progress of the human race as the Mohammedan Conquest of Spain". A word of praise should be given to the publishers for the admirable appearance of these handsome volumes, the print and covers of which are all that a dignified historical work demands.

F. W. WILLIAMS.

The History of North America. Edited by GUY CARLETON LEE, Ph.D. Vol. I. Discovery and Exploration. By ALFRed BritTAIN, in conference with GEORGE EDWARD REED, LL.D., S.T.D. Vol. II. The Indians of North America in Historic Times. By CYRUS THOMAS, Ph.D., in conference with W. J. MCGEE, LL.D. Vol. III. The Colonization of the South. By PETER JOSEPH HAMILTON. Vol. IV. The Colonization of the Middle States and Maryland. By FREDERICK ROBERTSON JONES, Ph.D. (Philadelphia: George Barrie and Sons. 1904. Pp. xxiv, 511; xx, 464; xxiii, 494; xxiv, 523.)

A WORK announced as "The first definitive, authoritative, and inclusive narrative history of North America" should indeed be furnished with worthy sponsors, and none more worthy could be found than those claimed for this series - Johns Hopkins University and the American Historical Association. The critical, however, will desire to know the exact relationship between these organizations and the work in question. The editor tells us that "for almost a decade" "the Johns Hopkins University group of authors" has had some such project in mind, and that when the American Historical Association decided not to undertake the task, they at once took up the plan it had outlined, and, modifying it in some respects, pushed it to completion. On examining the list of twenty authors, described as "specialists, mostly from the Johns Hopkins group", we find that four hold degrees from the department of History, Politics, and Economics of that university. None of these men is now connected with it, but the editor holds the position of instructor in history. With one exception, these men have attained the doctorate within the last ten years, the editor in 1898. They therefore do not belong to the generation which made the reputation of the university; they have their own reputation yet to make, and must have been graduate students when they conceived their ambitious project.

A plan proposed to the American Historical Association has indeed been in part followed, but this plan was never indorsed by the Association and was but the barest sketch, merely suggesting coöperation under the direction of an editor-in-chief, and publication in twenty volumes, each complete in itself. In other respects the connection of the Association with the history has been still more slight. Of three hundred and twenty-nine persons mentioned as "authors", as members of the "editorial board", "board of advisers on exclusion and inclusion", "board of advisers on colonial affairs", "board of military and naval advisers', and as giving "courteous attention, valuable assistance, encouragement, or approval", not one has ever served the Association as an officer, and only ten as members of any standing committee, commission, or board.. The greater number of those thus mentioned seem to have given the courteous attention which custodians of historical collections are accustomed to extend to all duly accredited students. If,

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