Show BETTER SHORT HISTORIES I i James Harvey Robinson In the current cur-rent International Monthly pleads for more rationally construe tod general or I outline histories lie dissents utterly from FrcMTumR dictum that history Is past politics and proposes a new definition I nition In the amplest sense of the term he says history Is everything true about everything man ever did or i thought or hoped or felt Since an outline history cannot contain every I thing writers of such books are bound to Inquire what things must be I Included and what can best be omitted I cannot be said that our historians have answered these questions with much success j As an Illustration of their failure t Prof Robinson takes the six pages devoted de-voted in a noted American scholars General History to the Italian Renaissance Re-naissance Ills subject was the era of a great revolution in human culture and the Italy of Dante Petrarch and Savonarola Yet what this scholar deems important in this period ii shown by the following characteristic extract Robert the Wise of Anjou 1309 1343 the successor of Charles I of Naples and the champion of tho Guelphs could not extend hIs power over Sicily where Frederick n 129G t 1337 the son of Peter of Aragon reigned Roberts granddaughter Joan I I after a career of crime and misfortune I i misfor-tune was strangled In prison by j I Charles RurazKO the last male descendant descend-ant of the house of Anjou in Lower I Italy 13S2 who seized on the government govern-ment Joan If the last heir of Ruraz zo 14141135 first adopted Alfonso V I of Aragon and then Louis III of Anjou An-jou and his brother Rene Alfonso who Inherited tho crown of Sicily I united both kingdoms Ha after a war with Rene and the Viscount of Milan After such a recital of the battles of kites and crows we may well recall Carlyles words that far away from Senatehouses battlefields a nfl kings antechambers the might tide of thought and action a still rolling on I its wondrous course Why should a I historian waste our time and his space l with these dead and gone dynastic quabbles instead of telling what we wJsh and ought to know about the Italian Renaissance History Is Carlyles mighty tide of thought and action Sometimes that tide flows over battlefields and through parliaments but often It deals with things far from these madding crowds The English translation of the Bible for example was a more important event than any battle ever fought on English soil The Invention of the cotton cot-ton gin did more to shape American history than any dobate In Congress The interest In past political conflicts soon evaporate but the influences of national sentiment religious development develop-ment literature art and Invention prevail pre-vail i from age to age The pronenessof Americans to regard foreign affairs through British spectacles I spec-tacles is largely due to the lack of books adequately setting forth the development I de-velopment of nonEnglish national conditions and ideas I our young people could be relied on to proceed from their arid school manuals to the great historians there would be little Cause for complaint But the school manual Is all millions ever know Boys and girls are entitled to n better introduction Intro-duction to the teachings of historic experience I ex-perience Some American historian I could not better serve his country than I by l writing a general history that would combine Heerens clear view of the tide of thought and action with the I Inter fruits Ocean of modern research Chicago |