The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, July 1939 - April, 1940 Page: 421

BOOK NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In Giddy Minds and For'eign Quarrels (New York: The Mac-
millan Co., 1939, 87 pages, $.50) Professor Charles A. Beard
essays to give the reader an estimate of American foreign policy.
The thesis of the book is that since 1900 our country's foreign
policy has been one of "wholesale interference with foreign quar-
rels and disturbances" by "the intelligentsia, the press, and pro-
fessional politicians in the United States." The Spanish-American
War put our country into the ranks of the world powers. Since
then we have been engaged in world politics in a big way. As
Professor Beard sees it, we are playing the game at a great ex-
pense to ourselves, and he implies, it seems, that we have not
been consistent in our foreign policy. In the last section of this
little book the author tries to demolish the concept held by some
that America can neither deny nor refuse "to accept the obligation
of directing world destiny." Finally, he contends that "those
Americans who refuse to plunge into the maelstrom of European
and Asiatic politics are not defeatist or neurotic," as their oppo-
nents charge, but that "they intend to preserve and defend the
Republic, and under its shelter carry forward the work of em-
ploying their talents and resources in enriching American life."
R. L. B.
The D. Appleton-Century Company has added another book to
The Century Historical Series with the publication of The Growth
of American Democracy (New York, 1939, pp. xxiii and 819,
$4.00) by Jeannette P. and Roy F. Nichols. The book presents
a social, economic and political history of the United States from
Martin Frobisher's search for the Northwest Passage to the New
Deal's search for the security of democracy. The table of con-
tents reveals a division of the story into the following large topics:
Creating a Society, Establishing Independence, Multiplying and
Dividing, The New Sectionalism, The Impact of Large Scale
Organization, The Progressive Era, The United States in a World
at War, What Price Prosperity, and The New Deal. Sixty-one
illustrations and thirty-five maps, graphs, and charts serve the
very evident purpose of teaching by other means than the printed
word. Front and back cover maps picture some of the main
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