German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945: A Guide to Research and Research Materials by Christoph

M. Kimmich; French Foreign Policy, 1918-1945: A Guide to Research and Research Materials
by Robert J. Young; Italian Foreign Policy, 1918-1945: A Guide to Research Materials and
Research Materials by Alan Cassels; International Organizations, 1918-1945: A Guide to
Research and Research Materials by George W. Baer
Review by: Stephen A. Schuker
The American Historical Review, Vol. 91, No. 1 (Feb., 1986), pp. 101-103
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association
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 ModernEurope 101

celebration of a new urbanism since the nineteenth Wilmington,Del.: Scholarly Resources. 1981. Pp. ix,
century. That celebration proves to be misplaced. 293. $17.50.
The urban systemwas largelya seventeenth-century
ROBERT J. YOUNG, editor. French Foreign Policy,
creation, the big disjunction coming between 1600
1918-1945: A Guide toResearchand ResearchMateri-
and 1650, when a polynuclear citypatternwas upset
als. (Guides to European Diplomatic History.) Wil-
and gave place to a centering in the northwest.
mington, Del.: Scholarly Resources. 1981. Pp. xv,
Industrialization in the period 1750-1850 at first
242. $17.50.
reinforced the shifttoward the Atlantic; only later,
with the emergence of the Ruhrgebiet, did it reverse ALAN CASSELS, editor. Italian Foreign Policy,
this shift, and the stock of big cities slightly in- 1918-1945: A Guide toResearchand ResearchMateri-
creased. als. (Guides to European Diplomatic History.) Wil-
The excitingmodificationsto European economic mington, Del.: Scholarly Resources. 198 1. Pp. xi,
history have for some years been arriving "from 271. $17.50.
below," so to speak, from the early modernists.
GEORGE W. BAER, editor. InternationalOrganizations,
Protoindustrialization was among these novelties,
1918-1945: A Guide toResearchand ResearchMateri-
and it is interestingto note thatde Vries thoroughly
als. (Guides to European Diplomatic History.) Wil-
establishes its significancedespite recent attacks on
mington, Del.: Scholarly Resources. 1981. Pp. xi,
the concept. Other features of his study are that he
260. $17.50.
sees citydwelling and urban industrialismas further
options within a universe of agriculture and rural
During the past twentyyears the opening of the
industryand that the urban systemwas a precondi-
principal West European archives has transformed
tion rather than a creation of urban industrialism.
conditions for the study of interwardiplomacy. Not
The author's use of transformationmatrixes,ur-
so long ago, the scholar seeking to get beyond the
ban "potentials," and the like will stun many histo-
published documents had to make do with the
rians-for thisis a stunningbook-but is not aufond
captured German microfilms,American records of
impossibly complicated. A true scholar, de Vries
indifferentquality, and the limited gleanings from
does not apply, in the showy cliometricway, math-
private papers that became available by happen-
ematical methods to other people's historicallabors;
rather, he chooses whichever method, statisticalor stance. Persistenceand a high tolerance for frustra-
tion figured as the twin underpinnings of research.
historical,seems appropriate to the task. We learn as
a result the dimensions and fluctuations of cities Now an academic lifetimewill not sufficeto explore
throughout Europe and the Europeanized regions every available source. D. H. Thomas and L. M.
and a great deal more than before about the me- Case's New Guide to theDiplomaticArchivesof Western
chanics of their chronological, spatial, and demo- Europe, though last revised in 1975, does not offer
graphic reshufflings.If Jan de Vries cannot per- sufficientlydetailed and current informationon the
suade history graduate schools to cease their period after 1914 to enable the historian to budget
Luddism over mathematics,no one can. his time closely. Accordingly, Christoph M. Kim-
With respect to migrationand demography much mich, Robert J. Young, Alan Cassels, and George
remains to be done, notably, testing furtherShar- W. Baer have done the professiona signal serviceby
lin-van der Woude's assault on the so-called law of providing reliable and comprehensive guides to the
urban natural decrease. Also, cities have yet to be diplomatic archives of Germany, France, Italy, and
examined as capital investmentsand physical fab- internationalorganizations from 1918 to 1945.
rics, since this book instead conceives of them as These straightforwardand uniformly sensible
vessels defined by the populations theycontain. The volumes do not claim to offer a methodological
database on population sizes will be de Vries's
Baedeker for practitionersof the "new diplomatic
longest-lastingcontribution, but the methods and
history." They aim to facilitate research on the
conclusions he derives from manipulating the base
making of high policy. They give, at best, secondary
will also inspire for a long time to come. The
emphasis to sources on parliaments and pressure
methods de Vries uses should now be applied to the
study of other continentsand other periods. This is groups, on the formationof public opinion, and on
social science historyat its best. domestic constraints generally, and series editor
ERIC JONES Kimmich has reserved analysis of business archives
La TrobeUniversity for a subsequent volume on international econom-
ics. Yet the authors cast their nets well beyond the
bureaucratic jurisdiction of the foreign ministries,
CHRISTOPH M. KIMMICH, editor. GermanForeignPol- and they describe the relevant sources for all gov-
icy, 1918-1945: A Guide to Research and Research ernment agencies that directly influenced foreign
Materials.(Guides to European Diplomatic History.) policy.

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102 ReviewsofBooks
The volumes follow a standard pattern. They
each begin withan essay on the foreignministryand
the making of foreign policy in the country con-
cerned. They then denominate the principal ar-
chives, both official and private, with their ad-
dresses, holdings, regulations, and (when feasible)
opening hours. They also report on specialized
research libraries and newspaper collections and
offerreferences to the more detailed extant guides
relating to particular institutions.The final two-
thirds of each volume comprises a select bibliogra-
phy covering reference works,documentary collec-
tions,dissertations,and memoir literatureas well as
the classic secondary works. Each listing has its
idiosyncracies,but all succeed in providing a funda-
ment that will orient serious students withoutyield-
ing to an obsessive comprehensiveness that might
make the guides unwieldy. Those who lug these
volumes from one repository to another will offer
thanks for such restraint.
Kimmich undertook in one respect the least
daunting assignment. He could draw on the admi-
rable directories already published by the leading
German archives and by such institutionsas the
Institut fur Zeitgeschichte. He has not, however,
limitedhimselfto summarizing those guides; he has
added information on sources for German diplo-
matic historyavailable abroad, so thathis book offers
something new even to scholars in the Federal
Republic. His introductoryessay on the administra-
tive historyof the Auswartiges Amtbetween the wars
constitutes a model of its genre. The list of key
diplomats at foreign postings and of major ambas-
sadors accredited to the Reich serves as a helpful
reference. (The other national volumes also include
this feature; the League of Nations volume, unfor-
tunately,omits it.) Some readers will question the
criteriaaccording to which Kimmich constructedhis
bibliography.The publications on Weimar and Nazi
foreign policy are so extensive that he faced admit-
ted space constraints. But he appears to have in-
cluded some outdated works at the expense of more
recent ones and to have slighted foreign economic
policy.
Young faced the opposite problem from that
encountered by Kimmich. The published guides to
French ministerialrecords for the interwar period
remain sketchy(although they are improving),and
the inventoriespublicallyavailable at the archives do
not contain everything.One must frequentlyseek
permission to consult sensitive files. It would be
unreasonable to expect Young to emulate the can-
dor of Edmund Wilson, who composed his classic
description of working conditions at the Biblio-
theque nationale only after resolving never to re-
turn there. Yet Young is explicit enough: "Rarely is
one told, withoutmuch prompting,of all the mate-
rial that ought to be seen for one's project. The art
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is to discover what exists for oneself, then to make a
case for being allowed to use it" (p. 40). Young
generously shares his laboriously acquired personal
knowledge on the War Ministry,and he provides
competent,if not whollycomprehensive, listingsfor
the Archives nationales, Bibliotheque nationale,
Quai d'Orsay, and the various depositories for pri-
vate papers; his inventoryfor the Finance Ministry
appears less full. He makes a valiant effortto trace
administrativechanges in the Foreign Ministryin
lightof his well-founded view that this is an attempt
to "tethera broomstick."His bibliographical section
includes a particularly thorough listing of recent
dissertations,memoir material,and articles;to make
room for this, he has restrictedthe data on mono-
graphs and eliminated descriptive annotations.
Cassels provides a splendid guide to the Italian
records. The mostdemanding reader could wish for
nothing more. The solitaryscholar could assemble
such comprehensive information only with diffi-
culty,and Cassels credits numerous archivistsand
colleagues with aiding his investigations.The many
outstanding featuresof thisvolume include detailed
referencesto material on foreignaffairsin all Italian
archives and major archives abroad; a review of
relevant archival legislation governing the use of
such material; a list of significantdiplomats with
indicationswhether theyleftmemoirs or papers; an
inventoryof collections still in private hands (evi-
dently the result of much skillfuldetective work); a
description of the main Italian newspapers under
the Fascist regime and their political orientation;
and a bibliographyofferingrefreshinglyfrankeval-
uations of published works. This volume willat once
satisfyspecialistexigencies and make it substantially
easier for nonexperts to use Italian materials. Re-
grettably,Cassels had no opportunity to report on
the Vatican archives, since these remain closed to
laymen for the period after 1903.
Baer's volume on international organizations
stands as the most uneven of the works under
discussion; it neverthelesswon the Outstanding Ac-
ademic Book award of itsyear. 'Fhe bad news is that
Baer devotes no more than ten pages to a sketchy
outline of League of Nations archival holdings, for
which no published guide exists. The good news is
that political historians,with the exception of those
studying specialized topics like disarmament, refu-
gees, and minorities, will be able to eliminate
Geneva from theirarchival itinerary.Baer confirms
that the League did not play much of a role in the
great political issues of the era (p. 82), and this
undoubtedly explains the patchy quality of its rec-
ords. Social historianswill findrather more of inter-
est, not merely in the League and United Nations
records but also in the filesof the numerous special-
ized agencies to which Baer provides references.
Old-fashioned types who thinkthat power stillmat-
 ModernEurope
ters will wonder what in the Geneva atmosphere
prompted Baer to furnishdetails, for example, on
the World Intellectual PropertyOrganization but to
pass over the Bank for International Settlementsin
silence. To Baer's credit,he provides an outstanding
annotated bibliography, organized topically, that
rescues many useful monographs from oblivion.
In the course of their labors these four authors
may have wondered at times if they had embarked
on a thankless task. They can begin to count the
votive candles. Every research scholar whose work
touches on diplomacy or who advises graduate stu-
dents in the field will come to regard this entire
series as an indispensable working tool.
STEPHEN A. SCHUKER
BrandeisUniversity
JOSEPH R. WASHINGTON, JR. Anti-Blackness in English
Religion,1500-1800. (Texts and Studies in Religion,
number 19.) New York: Edwin Mellen. 1984. Pp.
xix,603. $69.95.
Throughoutthisunusualbook,JosephR. Washing-
ton,Jr., insistson a fundamental distinction
between
"antiblackness"and "anti-Blackness."He uses
"antiblackness" to denotethemanynegativeaspects
of Englishcultureand especiallyitsChristianity: the
devil,witchcraft, sin,and especiallytheimageriesof
darknessin Anglo-biblical culture.He insiststhat
thisrigidlyheldand powerfulviewof theworldwas
extendedto the people whom the Englishcalled
"black" or "negro." Hence, pejorativethoughts
abouthumannaturein generalcame tobe fastened
on a particularpeople: theAfricansenslavedbythe
Englishin America.Thus, thecentralthesisis thata
deep-seatedreligiousand culturalstance of anti-
blacknessmade the Englishand theiroverseasde-
scendantsfundamentally, ineluctably"anti-Black"-
deeplyopposed to "Black"people.
The book is sustainedespeciallyby theuse of an
enormous range of source materials,including
Shakespeare,Richard Hakluyt,Samuel Purchas,
GeorgeFox,CottonMather,SamuelSewall,George
Whitefield,John Woolman, Charles Grandison
Finney,and William Lloyd Garrison. As these
namessuggest,thebook is moreaboutearlyAmer-
ica (wellpast 1800) thanaboutEngland.Yet itis the
rootsof antiblackness and anti-Blackness thatmost
interestthe author. His discussion of attitudes
towardGypsiesand the storyof Ham in the six-
teenthcenturyconstitutes themostinteresting part
of hisstudy.As thebook movesforwardchronolog-
ically,itbecomesmorefirmly rootedinwidereading
of the writings of importantindividuals,but it also
becomesless innovativeand less illuminating.
The book'semphasison theinherency ofcultural
posturesis persuasive,althoughitssteadyfocuson
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103
religion as such has pronounced limitationsfor an
understanding of the historyof attitudes and ideas
about race and about English Christianity as it
moved into the New World. The author pays virtu-
ally no attention to social circumstances, a disposi-
tion that leads to considerable confusion about
American Indians in a chapter entitled"The Brown
Connection between Black and White." Almost as
asides, he greatlyexaggerates the importance of the
slave trade to the Puritan New England economy
and the number of Africans caught up in the
Atlanticslave trade.
Throughout, the focus is on known writersrather
than on such sources as newspapers and statutes.
The author findsanti-Blacknessinfectingsuch men
as Cotton Mather and Samuel Davies, both of whom
were insistenton the equality of souls despite color.
He argues persuasively that even John Woolman
"missed altogether the depth of English anti-
Blackness and itsmeaning" (p. 470). He says thatthe
visionof "Reverend Woolman" went only so faras to
see slavery as the font of anti-Blackness when in
realitythat disease was a much more fundamental
cultural malady. He accords that "saintly" Quaker
"uncanny insight" but at the same time "cultural
myopia" (pp. 469-470).
Unfortunately,the book is writtenin a stylethat is
bound to weaken its impact. The prose is often so
murkyand convoluted as to be downright impene-
trable. Too many sentences have to be reread sev-
eral times in order to divine their intended mean-
ing. What, for example, is one to make of the
followingparagraph? "It is not trivialto inquire into
the phenomenon of anti-Blackness by means of an
exploratory question. Before their elevation to the
larger-than-lifestatus was the die cast respecting
anti-Blackness in the Puritan synthesisof Western
Christianityand the Shakespearian synthesisof its
secular philosophies? Did they generate such re-
spect (in retrospector prospect) until their descen-
dants were forced to shiftbetween Calvinism and
Stoicisminto the fitfulsynthesisof universalismand
moralism and slip from complacency into indiffer-
ence in the spiritof disinterestedwill to the good?"
(p. 63). The author's postscriptpromises a sequen-
tialstudy:thepresentbook,he writes,"istheend of
the beginning of an investigationinto the meaning
of the irreversibleand inextricable sacred-secular-
race tripletpower and powerlessness, the cause and
effectof English bearing and the Americanization of
its public-private-parochialdesign" (p. 539).
With such words the author's thoughts have
clearlyrun ahead of his controlover theirexpres-
sion. The footnotes, bibliography, and index also
sufferfromsloppiness. They are riddled witherrors
in titles,names, and page numbers. The text itself,
including its many very long block quotations, has
too many errors of typography and wording. Be-