SCIENCE AND HISTORY

The sole object of this volume is to argue that scientific method can fruitfully be applied to history."" Mr. Cuneo does not assert that he has done so ""fruitfully"", only by way of experiment and encouragement for others. Still and all, this is at least in paris -- quite an impressive demonstration, as Mr. Cuneo describes what he sees as recurring patterns in the histories of the civilizations of the world, and attempts to explain them by means of such borrowed concepts as mitosis, molecular energy, , and cross fertilization. ""It is the thesis of this book"" he states, ""that such patterns are plentifiable, measurable, and controllable."" Of course most readers would secretly like to believe this (the ""controllable"" part especially) and may bear a gridge against the author merely because he does not build a more air-tight case. But Mr. Cuneo deserves some credit and serious attention, if only because the of any philosophy of history is seemingly so strenuous a task that few beside , Spengler, and perhaps Toynbee (who comes in for a tongue-lashing here) have ever had the courage to carry it very far. As far as it goes, Science and History Is both closely and argued, and if it does not offer much that is very new in either fact or thought, it is the kind of work which will give almost any reader some excellent exer by requiring him to review, from different aspects and within novel illuminating, conte, much with which he is already familiar.