702 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
outbreak of hostilities in the far East. To the judicial attitude the author adds a thorough acquaintance with his material, enabling him to fortify his argument with a running commentary of authentic documents. But such merits we demand in these days from every chronicler who desires to impose his authority upon us. The special and quite unusual virtue of this book is the elimination of moral standards and patriotic sentiment from the discussion of a present- day conflict. Manchuria and Korea are introduced to us as regions where Russia and Japan must of necessity meet in an encounter, with regard to which it is as useless to take a high moral tone as to invoke the pity of a cannon ball. This cool, practical, and manly quality in this Japanese scholar falls in with all we hear of Japanese statesmen and generals, and augurs well for the eventual triumph of the Orient.
FERDINAND Sen WILL.
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.
