Review Article: The General History of the Second World War

MARTIN KITCHEN. A World in Flames: A Short History of the Second World War in Europe and Asia, 1939–1945. London and New York: Longman, 1990. Pp. xii, 377. $24.95 (CAN);

R.A.C. PARKER. Struggle for Survival: The History of the Second World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Pp. xii, 328. £5.95;

H.P. WiLLMOTT. The Great Crusade: A New Complete History of the Second World War. New York: Free Press (Macmillan), 1989. Pp. xii, 500. $24.95 (us);

JOHN KEEGAN. The Second World War. Sydney: Hutchinson, 1989. Pp. vii, 608. Aus $39.95;

JOHN ELLIS. Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War. London: André Deutsch, 1990. Pp. xxii, 643. £19.95;

ALAN F. WILT. War from the Top: German and British Military Decision Making during World War II. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990. Pp. x, 390. $35.00 (us).     

Review Article: International History and the Democratic Peace

JAMES LEE RAY. Democracy and International Conflict: An Evaluation of the Democratic Peace Proposition. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995. Pp. viii, 243. $39.95 (US);

THOMAS RISSE-KAPPEN. Co-operation among Democracies: The European Influence on US Foreign Policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. Pp. x, 250. $35.00 (US);

K. J. HOLSTI. The State, War, and the State of War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xiv, 254. $59.95 (US);

SUSAN PETERSON. Crisis Bargaining and the State: The Domestic Politics of International Conflict. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Pp. vii, 208. $42.50 (US);

JOHN M. OWEN. Liberal Peace, Liberal War: American Politics and International Security. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. Pp. 224. $32.50 (US).     

Review Article: On the Completion of A History of the Crusades

HARRY W. HAZARD and NORMAN P. ZACOUR, eds. A History of the Crusades : Volume VI: The Impact of the Crusades on Europe. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989. Pp. xxiv, 703. $40.00 (US). Reviewed by Donald E. Queller     

Review Article: Toynbee,McNeill, and the Myth of History

WILLIAM H. MCNEILL. Arnold J. Toynbee: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Pp. viii, 346. $24.95 (US); Reviewed by Gordon Martel

C.T. MCINTIRE and MARVIN PERRY, eds. Toynbee: Reappraisals. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989. Pp. viii, 254. $40.00 (CAN). Reviewed by Gordon Martel     

Review Article: Democratization as Cultural History, or: When is (West) German Democracy Fulfilled?

This review article seeks to advance the notion of democracyas action as a concept for the study of (West) German democracy.It suggests that it would be preferable to define democracyas practical rather than speculative so as to show how democraticculture, far from being merely an object of reverence, emergedin the form of serious disputes and equally serious displacements.Because democracy is the régime within which the strugglefor democracy finds legitimacy, the study of democracy meansexamining how men and women invoked democracy in the strugglefor what they believed were democratic goals and aspirations.Among the books under review, three in particular seem bestto anticipate future research in the area, in that they examinepost-1945 German democratization in an anti-teleological vein,mindful of conflict and the competition for power.     

Review Article: The Accuracy of Thoukydides

JOHAN HENRIK SCHREINER. Hellanikos, Thukydides, and the Era of Kimon. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 1997; dist. Oakville, Conn.: David Brown Book Company. Pp. 135. $26.95 (US); GEORGE CAWKWELL. Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War. London and New York: Roudedge, 1997. Pp. ix, 162. $18.99 (US). Reviewed by Tim Duff     

Religion and the Enlightenment: A Review Essay

Recent studies of the Enlightenment suggest that its relationto religion is far more complex than a simple process of increasingsecularization. The book by Sheehan shows, by examining translationsof the Bible into English and German in the Enlightenment, howreligion was reshaped, leading eventually to the dogma-freeChristianity proposed by Matthew Arnold. Israel's book arguesthat alongside the relatively cautious mainstream Enlightenmentthere was always a radical Enlightenment, heavily indebted toSpinoza, that was rationalist, atheist, and libertarian, andanticipated the dominant liberal values of the present day.Neither of these important studies, however, considers two areasthat remain under-researched: the popular Enlightenment (‘Volksaufklärung’),that is to say, the diffusion of Enlightenment thought amonguneducated people; and the Catholic Enlightenment which flourishedparticularly in Italy, Austria, and south Germany.     

Review Article: The Beginning and Ending of War

DALE C. COPELAND. The Origins of Major War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. Pp. xi, 322. $45.00 (US); H. E. GOEMANS. War and Punishment: The Causes of War Termination and the First World War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Pp. x, 355. $19.95 (US), paper.     

Archaeology and the Bible Revisited: A Review Article

David and Solomon, a new book by Israel Finkelstein and Niels Asher Silberman, through their discussion of Palestinian archaeology's current understanding, proposes to provide evidence to prove the accuracy of Frank Cross's more than 30 year old revision of Martin Noth's theory of a “Deuteronomistic History.” The authors attempt to confirm the history of the redaction of the biblical narratives about Saul, David and Solomon, involving seven distinct oral and four written strata of tradition. Their argument moreover claims the warrant to assert the historicity of each of these legendary kings of Israel. The present article argues to the contrary that the “archaeological evidence” proposed does not support such a redaction history nor establish the historicity of either the biblical figures or their stories, but that the harmony of biblical and archaeological issues is circular and illegitimate by the standards of historical research. It argues, moreover, that the claim of an oral tradition, reflecting original memories of an historical David or Saul is an entirely unnecessary and unlikely explanation for the origins of both the figures and their tales in the stories of 1-2 Samuel and 1 Kings. It moreover argues that the hypothesis of a redaction history in a succession of four cumulative revisions, beginning in the eighth century and completed in the sixth to fourth century, BCE—lacking as it does reference to a readable text—is neither critical nor falsifiable. Finally, Finkelstein and Silberman's book is judged as an unsuccessful attempt to return to the methods of “biblical archaeology” that were legitimately impeached in the mid-1970s.     

Review Article: The Formation of Christendom.

JUDITH HERRIN. The Formation of Christendom. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987. Pp. x, 530. $34.95 (us). Reviewed by Christopher J. Wickman.     

Review Article: The Ways of the World

S. E. FINER. The History of Government from the Earliest Times: Volume I: Ancient Monarchies and Empires. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. xvii, 610; Volume II: The Intermediate Ages. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. vii, 613–1,061; Volume III: Empires, Monarchies, and the Modern State. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. vii, 1,065–1,701. $270.00 (CDN), for the three volumes. Reviewed by A. P. Thornton     

The Rainbow Serpent in the Aboriginal Pantheon: A Review Article

The Rainbow Serpent: a chromatic piece. By I. Buchler and K. Maddock (eds). The Hague — Paris, Mouton, 1978. x + 227 pp.