A. BRÜCKNER. _A Literary History of Russia._ 1908. 12s. 6d. net. MAURICE BARING. _Landmarks in Russian Literature._ 1910. 6s. net. The last-named are the best available books in English on Russian literature. The works of the great Russian novelists are now accessible to English readers. Nothing helps one to understand Russia so well as reading the works of Tourgeniev, Tolstoi, and Dostoieffsky. The best translations are those of Mrs. Garnett. The following are recommended to those who are beginning the study of Russian literature and who are desirous of reading novels which throw light on the springs of Russian life and thought:-- TOURGENIEV. _Fathers and Children._ Heinemann. 2s. net. A study of Russian Nihilism in the 'eighties, which may be read and compared with Kropotkin's _Memoirs_. TOLSTOI. _War and Peace._ Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net. _Anna Karenin._ Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net. The first of these is perhaps the finest treatment of war in modern literature, the subject being the Russian campaign of Napoleon in 1812. No other book gives one a better idea of the way the Russians make war and of the essential greatness of the Russian national spirit. DOSTOIEFFSKY. _The Brothers Karamazov._ Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net. This, which is one of the greatest novels ever written, depicts, at once relentlessly and with infinite tenderness, the spiritual conflict which has agitated Russian society for at least fifty years past. JOSEPH CONRAD. _Under Western Eyes._ 6s. A powerful study of modern revolutionary types. Conrad, of course, is not a Russian novelist, but he is of Polish origin. GOGOL. _The Inspector-General._ Walter Scott. 1s. net. A comedy first produced in Petrograd in 1836. Gogol is one of Russia's classics. This play is a humorous treatment of bureaucratic corruption and inefficiency. CHAPTER VI FOREIGN POLICY The present war has raised in the minds of many men a question which we as a people will soon be called upon to answer. Was this war necessary? Or was it caused by the ambitions and foolishness of statesmen? Might it not have been averted if the peoples of Europe had had more control over the way in which foreign policy was carried on? Out of these questions has arisen a demand for the "democratisation of foreign policy"; that is, for greater popular control over diplomatic negotiations. In view of this, it becomes necessary for every British citizen to gain some idea of what foreign policy is and by what principles it should be governed. It is the purpose of this chapter to give, first, some account of the actual meaning of the words "foreign policy," and then, secondly, to consider how foreign policy may best be controlled in the interests of the whole population of the British Empire, and in the interests of the world at large. A. THE MEANING OF FOREIGN POLICY