THE RISE AND FALL OF WESTERN COLONIALISM

It will be seen from the subtitle, ""A Historical Survey from the Early 19th Century to the Present,"" that the author has chosen to emphasize the latter part only of the Rise in his title, and the Fall. Thus it is especially to the colonization of Africa and Asia that he devotes his attention. He has further stressed this outlook by devoting only the first of his three sections to the last century, while the remaining two deal with the effects of World Wars I and II, and the various struggles for independence. Professor Easton's main intent in writing here was to supply a comprehensive test for the teaching of his subject to undergraduates, and he modestly terms it ""basically an extended outline"". In this he has been completely successful, but, one fears, at the expense of nearly all usefulness to the general reader. The size and diversity of his topic has further forced him to exclude economic, social, and cultural aspects ""in favor of the simple political facts"". The result, in the hands of a competent instructor, could be immensely valuable; but by itself it is an unrelieved burden of bare dates, faceless names, and mostly inscrutable actions.