Guide de L'Etudiant En Histoire Moderne Et Contemporaine by Camille Bloch; Pierre RenouvinReview by: Sherman KentThe American Historical Review, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Oct., 1949), pp. 129-130Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1841119 .

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Bloch and Renouvin: Guide de l'e'tudiant I29

GUIDE DE L'tTUDIANT EN HISTOIRE MODERNE ET CONTEMPO- RAINE. By Camille Bloch and Pierre Renouvin. [Initiation aux etudes his- toriques.] (Paris: Presses universitaires de France. I949. PP. viii, I44. 200 fr.)

IN the role of modern and contemporary counterpart to Halphen's Initiation aux etudes d'histoire du moyen age, this short guide is designed primarily to help the French undergraduate who seeks his license e's lettres, the French graduate student who is embarking upon his thesis, and the lay historian in his first re- search. To the extent that the book does contain bibliographical and methodological substance, it will have a certain restricted usefulness; to the extent that some be- ginner might construe it as a model of the historian's wisdom and art to be emu- lated, it will not.

For the young Frenchman who is about to begin his first serious work, who is interested in the recent (sixteenth century into the twentieth) history of his own country, and who reads no language but French, this guide will afford basic bibliographical and archival data. It will tell him a great deal about the historical materials of his country and will give him aid and comfort in his struggle with the complicated pattern of the great French bibliographical works. It will tell him things of large value about his country's archives and its learned societies. The foreign student of French history will likewise benefit.

But the omission of practically all foreign contributions to French historical bibliography and historiography (Kircheisen, Hyslop, Brinton, Gottschalk, Win- nacker, Hill, Farmer, for example) is in itself no favor to this limited audience which presumably could use the corpus of these works even if it could not read the introduction and critical comments. Moreover, the omission of great con- tributions to the substantive history of France just because they are written in a foreign language is to submerge in the beginner an incentive to study which should rather be heightened.

Its last forty pages will advise him on some of the phases of method: the dif- ferent approaches to history, finding a suitable topic, bibliography, study of sources, and presentation of results. This section has much that is sound but little that is new; indeed some of its paragraphs would seem to parallel closely (and without acknowledgment) earlier formulations by authors-not all of whom were French.

On the other hand, for the young Frenchman who can read a foreign lan- guage and who is interested in the countries of the outside world with which France has had relations and with which her own future is closely bound, the book can be of small value. There are probably fewer than seventy-five American, British, and German authors listed by name, and many of these seem to be in- cluded only because their work has been put into French. The most recent Rus- sian history (Platonov) ends in i9i8; the latest book on Germany (Benaert's volume, L'Unite' allemande i806-i938) takes the story past I933 to be sure, but is, in the authors' list, the only acceptable book to go beyond about I900. The last

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130 Reviews of Books

words on Britain are Prentout's single volume ending at I919 and Halevy's Epi- logue. There is no book specifically dedicated to Italy since the rise of Fascism. Morison and Commager's edition of 1937, and Muzzey and Channing in the French translations of I92I and I9I9 respectively, are the only three works on

United States history written by Americans. Three other works by Frenchmen

carry our story into the twenties and thirties. In such fashion the Guide can only play to that sector of the French historical

profession which is already too narrow in its outlook and needs no lessons in

provincialism. Furthermore, and perhaps more seriously, it will play to that other sector which has exasperated both the great French scholars and outsiders by its methodical want of method. The Guide in itself could scarcely furnish a poorer

example of technical achievement. Not only in the unfortunate unevenness of its

bibliographical emphases, its glaring omissions of masterworks, its occasional mis-

valuations of works which it cites, but also in the carelessness with which the

data are assembled it is a dolorous model. There is no consistency in the styling of bibliographical references; there are misspellings in names and titles; and there are mistakes in dates and places of publication. A high water mark of scholarly insouciance would seem to this reviewer the repeated citation of material in an

early edition of Halphen's Initiation (the lead volume in this very series of guides)

when the revised and augmented edition, with a new pagination, appeared in

ample time (three years) to serve the writers' purposes.

Yale University SHERMAN KENT

GEORGE FOX'S "BOOK OF MIRACLES." Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Henry 1. Cadbury. Foreword by Rufus M. Jones. (New York: Cam-

bridge University Press. 1949. Pp. xvi, I62. $6.50.)

GEORGE Fox's "Book of Miracles" throws light on an aspect of seventeenth

century religion which is considered somewhat naive and bizarre today but which helps to explain the intolerant reaction of more conservative religious bodies toward

the enthusiastic sects of the Puritan period, especially the Quakers. To members

of these groups the Apostolic days had returned. Men not only had visions and new insights but miraculous powers were bestowed upon those whom the Spirit

touched. George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends, "felt clearly that the miracles surrounding his life and the beginnings of the Quaker movement were

too numerous and too significant to be ignored." Thus he wrote, in his later

years, a collection of episodes entitled the "Book of Miracles." George Fox left provision for the printing of his work, naming thirteen Friends

to have the matter in charge, with powers to omit and to edit. Under the direc- tion of Thomas Ellwood three large volumes were published; the journal in i694, the Epistles in I698, and the Doctrinal Works in I706. At this point the project

was abandoned and knowledge of an additional manuscript must have been lost

as no reference to the "Book of Miracles" exists after i698.

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