This is not a book for anyone seeking an easy road to superficial knowledge of the history of modern European thought and culture. It is a careful and thoughtful and scholarly approach to the events and trends that have formed the groundwork for current thought. It is almost incredible that, within six months one man (aided by specialists in fields of art, music and literature) could publish a book like this and his Economic History of the Western World (Harcourt, Brace), and have each of them a challenge to lazy thought, a scholarly contribution to a definitive approach to current problems and their historical bases. Text book for colleges.