Man or the State?/end matter
NEW BOOKS
By Arthur Ransome: Russia in 1919 ($1.50).
The most intelligent and informative book on Russia that has thus far been written. The author is an expert on Russia and is one of England's best writers and most faithful reporters. The actual operations under the Soviet Republic—agriculture, industry, education, transportation and social life—are interestingly set down, and there are interviews with Lenin and all the leaders, including the heads of all the important departments of the government. The announcement of this book evoked such a response as to make necessary a second printing before publication.
By Lajpat Rai: The Political Future of India ($1.50).
What do you know of the aspirations of 315,000,000 Indians? This is a full study of the present political situation in India, based on the Montagu-Chelmsford report of which too little is known here. Such important subjects as the public service in India, the European communities there, the Indian army and navy, tariffs, recommendations for repressive legislation, education, etc., are discussed in detail. The book as a whole tends to clarify the struggle between India and Great Britain, and to explain India's reaching for democracy and the political, social and economic facts from which it derives.
By Norman Angell: The British Revolution and the American Democracy ($1.50).
We have had popular war books; this is the authoritative after-war book. Few Americans are prepared for an intelligent discussion of the vital problems that clamor for solution. The prevailing unrest cannot be interpreted without an understanding of its universal significance. It is necessary for us to get the facts about the rise of British labor whose social programme has arrested the world's attention; about railways and other public utilities whose future control is in dispute; about conscription as a permanent policy; about the institution of private property as affected by the war; about the different definitions of democracy. Such information and much more, essential to the manifold study of reconstruction, is presented lucidly in this handbook to the new social and industrial order.
By G. D. H. Cole: Labour in the Commonwealth ($1.50).
This is virtually a restatement of those fundamental aims to which the more articulate section of British labor is endeavoring to give expression. It crystallizes the wide-spread dissatisfaction fermenting in the minds of workers. "The commodity theory of Labour," says the author, "is fundamentally inconsistent with the recognition of the fact that 'Labour' consists of human beings." He denies the sovereignty of the state but regards it as only one among various forms of association. The book reveals the difference between the commonwealth that is and the one that might be. Mr. Cole is a leading writer in the Guild Socialist movement and this book, in the Manchester Guardian's opinion, is his best since "The World of Labour."
By Randolph Bourne: Untimely Papers ($1.50).
Here are gathered together the notable political essays by this leader among the younger publicists of his day, and a fragment from an unfinished work on the State. A fresh scrutiny of this profound, brilliantly presented material confirms the widely held opinion that our country lost one of its most significant thinkers by his death. The volume includes the famous "The War and the Intellectuals*' and other papers that contributed to the brief but enviable career of The Seven Arts whose editor, James Oppenheim, writes a foreword.
Waldo R. Browne (editor): Man or the State? ($1.00).
As never before, the attention of students of history is concentrated on the problems of the State and on the individual's relation to it. Such books as those by Laski, Zimmern, Follett and Burns attest the interest of contemporary scholars; this volume shows the importance to our day of their forerunners of the 19th century. It includes essays by Kropotkin, Buckle, Emerson, Thoreau, Spencer, Tolstoy and Wilde, that will live long and, as some of them are not easily accessible, the book will be doubly prized. An introduction by Mr. Browne- integrates the contents and relates the best thought of the last century to the paramount political questions of our time.
By Leon Duguit: Law in the Modern State ($2.50).
M. Duguit is well-known as perhaps the most brilliant of living French political thinkers and the book here translated is generally regarded as his best and most suggestive work. The decline of the omnipotent state has forced into review the problems of representative government. M. Duguit discusses in this book the mechanisms by which the state may be made effectively responsible to its citizens. An introduction by Harold J. Laski traces the relation of his ideas to those of American and British thinkers. The book is not only a guide to the most vital of modern political problems but an analysis of jurisprudence which no lawyer can afford to ignore. The translation is by Frida and Harold Laski.
By H. N. Brailsford: The Covenant of Peace (Paper covers, 25c.).
No man in England or America is more competent to expound the basic principles that must govern a League of Nations than Mr. Brailsford whose books and articles on the subject are well known. Here he presents the entire subject in an essay that received a prize of £100 awarded by a jury that included H. G. Wells, John Galsworthy and Professor Bury. The pamphlet is valuable to those who think they know all about the subject as well as to those who know that they know nothing about it. An introduction by Herbert Croly assists in posing the problem for the reader.
PUBLISHED BY B. W. HUEBSCH