Free PDF

Author : Lothrop Stoddard Theodore
Title : Present-day Europe Its national states of mind
Year : 1917

Link download : Lothrop_Stoddard_Theodore_-_Present-day_Europe.zip

This book resolved itself from the first into a series of choices. The problem was, how to portray within the limits of a single volume the war psychology of the various European nations. That problem was not an easy one. The portrayal of national states of mind requires treatment differing radically from that employed in a narrative of events. The only satisfactory method of portraying thought and emotion is the use of direct evidence—the testimony of the people themselves This explains the numerous direct quotations which will be found in the succeeding pages. No words of a foreign observer could mirror the spirit of warring Europe as do the voices of its sons and daughters crying out from a full heart in the very hour of trial. The evidence adduced has been of the most contemporary and popular character. Speeches, press-comment, pamphlets, brochures—the words of and for the moment : these best bespeak the stirrings of the national soul. Official utterances, carefully weighed and craftily spoken as they are, are never quoted save when they faithfully represent popular feeling or when they produce a marked effect upon public opinion. ...