HISTORY OF EUROPE SINCE 1814 BY CHARLES SEIGNOBOS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS TRANSLATION EDITED BY S. M. MACVANE Professor of History in Harvard University NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY EDITOR'S PREFACE. The Histoire Politique de l'Europe Contemporaine by Professor Seignobos seems to me to merit larger use among people of English speech than it is likely to receive in the original French. The author's capacity for seizing on the decisive events of recent European history, his skill in using one event to explain another, his steady interest in the welfare of the common mass of men, his thorough freedom from national or other prejudice, and above all his very suggestive generalizations on the later history of Europe, give his work instructive qualities not always found in our general histories. In a few points this is not a simple translation. Here and there a phrase or even a whole passage has been omitted-sometimes because the matter seemed of little importance to students in this country, sometimes because it would not have been intelligible to ordinary readers without explanatory notes for which space could not easily. be afforded. In the chapters on England I have taken somewhat larger liberties. In his treatment of recent English history Professor Seignobos seems to me to have been less successful than in the rest of his work. In trying to remedy imperfections I have not thought it expedient to distract the reader's attention with marks indicating my departures from the original. Whatever of apology is due to the author for this course is freely offered. A full index has been added. Various new titles have been inserted in the bibliographies, chiefly of books in English. I had wished to add a general bibliography for the whole period, but time could not be found for the preparation of it. While assuming full responsibility for the contents of this volume, justice to a most efficient coadjutor requires me to say that most of the actual labour of translation has been done by another. HARVARD UNIVERSITY, September, 1899. S. M. MACVANE. |