Evening star., 1938-09-11
Rv Marv.Carfer Roberts.

EMPIRE BY James Truslow
Adams. New York: Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons.
TT IS little hard to see the reason
for this book, since all that Is IN
it has been written before, and
L more than once. The present
writing, to be sure, makes an excellent.
solid work; but, then, that is no more
than one would expect OF James Trus-
low Adams. One can say, of course,
that a good story deserves many tell
ings, and that the history OF England
Is eminently such tale. Like the
life of Napoleon, it tempts biographers
necessarily. Nonetheless, admitting all
this, the reviewer still felt no start
of surprise when she came to the IN
formation in Mr. Adams account that
the Romans made no real impression
on the early Britains whom they con-
quered, and no sense OF suspense
when she read that the Normans over
came the SaxonS at the battle OF
Hastings in the year OF our Lord 1865.
Instead, she had dim, fitting vision
of certain classroomS and. for the mo-
ment, thought that she Smelled chalk
dust and textbooks family in the air.
For it would seem that what MIR.
Adams has produced here is really a
great, glorified text 1t is written with
sufficient simplicity to be understand
able and interesting to any intelligent
youth, and it follows pretty much the
lines of the ordinary text, too; that
is, it traces Englands development in
the main by way of her political his
tory. 1t adds to this consecutive pro-
cedure discussions of economics re-
ligious influences, literature, archi-
lecture, racial factors and the like,
and the whole is spotted with Mr..
Adams shrewd comments. What re-
suits is lively. learned and completely
readable book in which the well-knoWn
facts of England's history are assem-
bled in a plausible synthesis. If only
one had never heard of England be-
fore one might find it dramatic read
ing. AS it is, the work has to go into
the category of texts, but well above
the level of that group in scope and
reliability.
The volume, to be sure, does not
carry the story of England down to
the present. 1t ends with the reign
of George III, with, as Mr. Adams
puts it, the creation of the First En-
pire For, though that period saw
the loss to England of the American
colonies, it also saw the triumph
of England over France in India and
Canada, which possessions, as Mr..
Adams interprets it. made possible
the subsequent development of the
vast Second Empire. 1t is an interest
ing thing that the present book covers
a rising time in English history, a
time when England was still an ex-
pansionist power. A second volume,
we are told, is to follow this, carrying
the history down to the present. One
cannot but wonder how the author
will treat the England of the Goth
century.
Opinions seem to fall into two
schools there; we have the pessimists
who believe that Englands sun is
slowly but surely setting, and we have
the faithful who hold that, by Great
ing her commonwealth of free ma
tions, Britain has made herself an
inevitable leader in the future history
of democratic government throughout
the world, and that, if struggle
between democracy and absolutism
dictatorship is destined to take
place, she will be the bulwark of
the free nations. On the basis of
the present volume, it seems likely
that Mr.. Adams will hold, in general,
with the latter opinion. He clearly
believes that England is land OF
destiny, and that the English people
are the breeders Of superior groups
whenever they settle. Unless he DEM
onstrates a pessimism in his next
volume which is entirely lacking in
his present one, he will hardly take
the line that that destiny has been
worked out to its completion and
that the great democratic, peace
loving populations of English-speak-
ing people have come, with sudden
ness, to the end of their tether.
At any rate, the succeeding volume
will offer Mr. Adams more scope for
speculation and Interpretation than
he seems to have felt allowable in
his present one He has been writing
history here, and his conclusions are
in the main, conservative. His next
work will be, in part at least, in the
less circumscribed realm of the recent
past and present and one cannot but
wonder what line his conservatism
by no means a lifeless state of ac-
ceptance, but, as said. animated and
ingenious-will take in relation to the
coming times.
IN SEARCH OF SOVIET GOLD.
BY John D. Littlepage and Demaree
Bess. New York: Harcourt Brace
g. Co.
I Asst week the reviewer wrote in
these columns of a work called
Alone Into the Forbidden Land" 1t
was the narrative of travels through
Central Asia by young Austrian
named Gustav Krist. Herr Krist made
his journey in l924-25 He told of the
beginnings, at that time, of the Soviet
effort to collectivize and regiment
the great nomad populations of the
Central Asia region and prophesied
that it would only be matter of a
few years before the age-old freedom
of these peoples would be utterly de-
stroyed. In the present book an
American engineer who was employed
by the Soviet government in 1927 to
take charge of the practical end of
Russia's gold production, and who
remained in that country until 1886,
tells more of the process which Herr
krist saw in its initial stages. Mr..
Littlepage was stationed for some time
in Russia's southeast and saw there,
at first hand, the "denomadization"
m the mciently established Moham-
medan peoples
His story is, truly, an amazing one.
He tells us how Stain, wishing to
flll up the sparsely- populated gold
producing region with colonists, and