College and Research Libraries United States out of a total of over 13,000 li- braries. Of bookseller subscribers we have today 153, from a total of approximately 2,000 rare booksellers, antiquarian dealers, secondhand shops and book scouts. To this reviewer, this came as a bit of a shock. Therefore these remarks may serve as a memo as well as a review of the journal and its contents for readers of CRL, who may not have seen copies of The American Book Collector, or who may have neglected to order it for their libraries. Surely there are hundreds of librarians concerned with topics other than statistics, administration and tech- nical studies who would find this periodical with its bookish essays, informative articles and news items of more than casual interest. The library's clientele will find that the pub- lication has considerable appeal for them too. One of the major contributions published during 1954-55 was the work by George Chap- man Singer entitled "Marketing Methods and Channels of Distribution in the Rare Book Trade." Mr. Singer treats the many aspects of buying and selling rare books at auction and through the antiquarian shops, and pre- pared the study as a thesis in marketing at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate Divi- sion. Although this investigation may not offer new information for our librarians who are rare book specialists, this reviewer believes that many of the younger members of the profession, particularly those who have had little experience with special collections and rare books, will find much useful information in Mr. Singer's six exploratory chapters. "The series is an excellent supplement to Storm and Peckham's Invitation to Book Collecting and Carter's Taste and Technique of Book Collecting, which have appeared in recent years. The subjects treated in recent issues of The American Book Collector serve to indi- cate the scope of the journal: "Collecting Science Fiction," "Hans Christian Anderson, 1805-1955," "Bibliographical Essay on Fred- erick Rolfe (Baron Corvo)" and "News and Reviews of Private Presses." There have been brief articles on "Australiana," "Jack Lon- don a~ a Collectible Author," "Eleven Ways to Spot a Forgery," "Benjamin Franklin: American Book Collector, 1706-1956," and numerous others. A regular feature of the magazine is the inclusion of reprints of some lesser known but historically important contributions, such as Thomas A. Jones's]. Wilkes .Booth (Chi- cago, 1893) and The California journal of William Perkins, 1849-1852, which appeared serially with appropriate illustrations. In each issue there are regular columns on Lincoln- iana, Autographs, Auction Sales, and West- ern Roundup, as well as book reviews and classified advertising. The forty-page Sum- mer, 1956, issue contained the First Annual Collector's Directory and a provocative arti- cle on "American Book Burnings" by Walter Hart Blumenthal, author of Bookmen's Bed- lam. Librarians who respect the field of books and want to aid in the support of a publica- tion which provides them with authoritative. well-written articles while keeping them in- formed about sales, collectors and biblio- graphical studies will understand why The American Book Coll.ector deserves a larger list of subscribers in the profession.- H. Richard Archer, R. R. Donnelley and Sons Co. Concepts of Historiography Man on His Past: The Study of the History of H istorical Scholarship. By Herbert Butterfield. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1955. 238p. $4.50. Essays in the History of Ideas. By Arthur 0. Lovejoy. New York: George Braziller, 1955. 359p. $3.75. Those noisy proponents of the doctrine that the formal training of librarians must "get back to the book"-by which they usu- ally mean a return to bibliomania or some other manifestation of book madness-would do well to read with care these penetrating lectures presented at the Queen's University in Belfast by the distinguished Cambridge historian , Herbert Butterfield. Man on His Past, though it draws its argument from the field of historiography, specifically the his- toriography of the nineteenth century, is fundamentally a protest against that form of scholarship which is a superficial "spoon- feeding ... with secondhand knowledge." Butterfield is in constant outcry against a 82 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES scholarship which produced nothing but "books about books," a scholarship that re- solves itself into a mere compendium, or se- quence of compendia, "something like a chronological series of encyclopaedia-articles on individual historians, with a resume of their careers and achievements (and a group- ing into 'schools' or 'movements') after the manner of old-fashioned textbooks in the his- tory of literature." Butterfield reminds us that the study of historiography is more than a mere recapitu- lation of the ideas of individual thinkers, however important and influential they may have been. He sees it as comprising "the story of the establishment of institutions, the policies of governments and teaching bodies, and the results of cooperative endeavor." The history of science, he says, "could never be adequately reconstructed by a student who confined his attention to the few men of su- preme genius. We should produce a mislead- ing diagram of the whole course of things if we merely drew direct lines from one of these mighty peaks to another. The great books are undoubtedly preferable to the reader, more serviceable in education, and more en- riching to the mind; but if we restrict our- selves to these, the result is likely to be a rope of sand." The author illustrates his thesis by asserting that the contribution of Newton cannot be fully comprehended unless the scholar is aware of the state of science before Newton came to grips with physical phenom- ena, and follows the history of speculation concerning gravitation-not excluding the mistakes and blunders-"down to the mo- ment when the famous apple fell." Historiography, then, is more than a branch of the history of thought, for Butter- field equates historical thinking with the sci- entific method. He is in accord with the Gottingen scholars of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with Ranke, and Acton, in insisting upon the "interconnected- ness" of events. The problems of historiog- raphy are closely connected with the prob- lems of life itself; they treat of the ways in which human beings take their vicissitudes on this earth, and a people that lives without any knowledge of its past, without any seri- ous attempt to organize its collective memory, could hardly be expected to make much prog- ress toward advancing its culture. Repeat- ]ANUARY7 1957 edly, one has observed, especially in politics, how greatly influenced are men's attitudes by their interpretation of past events. In Butterfield's penetrating analysis of this larger concept of historiography, a concept that might well be magnified to include all retrospective scholarship, he focuses attention upon the German historical scholar . at the University of Gottingen, the work of Leo- pold van Ranke, and of Lord Acton. This series of lectures concludes with the recon- struction of an historical episode-the history of the inquiry into the origins of the Seven Years War. The purpose of this essay is to illustrate the interconnectedness of events by portraying the scholarship that lies behind historical narrative, and to expose the pit- falls that may beset the student and reader of history. The final essay, which is not a part of the lecture sequence, traces the historiog- raphy of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, with particular attention to the work of Lord Acton and the problems involved in creating an objective narrative. Not since the publication of R. G. Colling- wood's The Idea of History, has this reviewer seen so clear and intelligent an analysis of the problem of historical scholarship. But here, even more than in the writing of Col- lingwood, is the foundation of all scholar- ship, a philosophy that unites the scientific and the humanistic in an harmonious whole, a credo for those who believe in the unity of all knowledge. Professor Arthur 0. Lovejoy reaches the same conclusions respecting the unity of scholarship, through his examination of the historiography of ideas as revealed in the realm of letters. With illustrations drawn from the history of literature, J:.le argues for the need of closer and wider liaison, of more inter:_-disciplinary cross-fertilization, within the- circle of all scholarship. The method of the student of the history of ideas i.s, then, he insists, one of both isolation and synthesis. The idea must be isolated for intensive study, but there must be brought together in that study material from all the provinces into which that idea has penetrated. To achieve this goal he insists upon greater col- laboration among all scholars, but particu- larly, collaboration of scholars in the fields of the sciences with those in the humanities. Thus, Lovejoy reaffirms the unity of all 83 knowledge in the interdependence of schol- arship , and finds the presence and influence of the same presuppositions or other oper- ative ideas in very diverse regions of thought and in different periods. This persistence in the identity of an idea-complex was also af- firmed in his The Great Chain of Being (1936) and Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity (1935). The remainder of the volume under re- view is comprised of some fifteen essays deal- ing with a wide variety of topics in the his- tory of literature, treated from this synthetic point of view. This collection of Lovejoy's was brought together to honor him on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the History of Ideas Club at Johns Hopkins University. One wishes that the selection might have exhibited more of that unity for which the author is so ardent, and so prop- erly, an exponent. Thus the title of the book is somewhat misleading, and the reader lays the book aside with the wish that the initial chapter on th~ historiography of ideas had been expanded to the length of the entire work. There is much in both the Butterfield and Lovejoy studies for contemplation by those who are concerned with education for librar- ianship, and especially by those who are dis- turbed by. the direction which education for librarianship is taking today. If librarianship is to become an increasingly important link in the chain of total communication, it logically follows that an investigation into the transmission of ideas is a rna jor concern of education for librarianship. To the librar- ian, the social role which ideas, particularly ideas which have emerged from a wide va- riety of disciplines, have played in the growth of our society and the development of our culture is of basic importance. Ideas are the librarian's true stock-in-trade, and books, as the physical embodiment of ideas, are only incidental. It is toward a better understanding of the questions raised by both Butterfield and Lovejoy that an important segment of re- search in librarianship should be directed, for the historiography of ideas may well pro- vide much of the substance from which the education of all future librarians is to be derived.-]. H. Shera, Western Reserve University, School of Library Science. Recent Barnes & Noble Publications for the HISTORICAL REFERENCE COLLECTION 8th Enlarged Edition-1956 HISTORICAL ATLAS By William R. Shepherd A classic in atlases! Long out-of-print, now reprinted by offset lithography in 5 rich colors. Eight new maps prepared by C. S. Hammond & Co. bring the Atlas right up to 1956. "As most librarians know, this is perhaps the best of the one-volume general historical atlases, prepared with expert advice, and giving gen- erous coverage to ancient, medieval, and modern Western history . . .. Most public, college and school libraries will want for replacement, reference, and circulation."-Library Journa~ 341 pages $12.50 A HISTORY OF EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE: 476-911 By Margaret Deanesly "This volume marks the completion of a distinguished series, 'Methuen's History of Medieval and Modern Europe,' and is a systematic and extremely well- written account of the early historical period. It will be serviceable as a textbook and reference work, but it will also serve as excellent and informative reading for background purposes. Throughout the series the emphasis has been on continental Europe rather than on the British Isles. Smaller libraries in particular should investigate the Methuen series; the bibliographical notes are well chosen and annotated and the indexes are carefully prepared."-Library Journa~ 620 pages $6.00 MUffi'S ATLAS OF ANCIENT AND CLASSICAL HIS- TORY Edited by George Goodall & R. F. Treharne 28 pages $2.00 ยท MUIR'S HISTORICAL ATLAS: Ancient, Medieval and Modern Edited by George Goodall & R. F. Treharne 144 pages $8.00 GROWTH OF PAPAL GOVERNMENT IN THE MID- DLE AGES By Walter Ullmann " ... merits the closest attention from both the spe- cialist and the general historian of the Middle Ages." -American Historica~ Review. 482 pages ' $8.00 POLITICAL THEORY By G. C. Field, Prof. Emeritus of Philosophy, Univer- sity of Bristol " .. . within what might be called the classical area of his subject Prof. Field has left us a notably useful final work."-The Manchester Guardian. 291 pages Ready early 1957 $3.50 COMING BACK INTO PRINT EARLY 1957 MOHAMMED: The Man and His Faith By Tor Andrae $3.50 CLAUDIUS THE EMPEROR AND HIS ACHIEVEMENTS By Arnaldo Dante Momigliano FREEDMEN IN THE EARLY ROMAN EMPffiE By A.M. Duff ROMAN LEGIONS By Henry M.D. Parker SEND FOR NEW B&N DESCRIPTIVE CATALOG BARNES & NOBLE, INC. 105 Fifth Avenue New York 3, N.Y. Please mention C & R L when corresponding with its advertisers.