Bassett's Short History is a textbook for the use of college students and for readers who desire a reliable account of United States history in a single volume. In addition to these uses, it will no doubt have a wide sale as a reference book in schools whose library facilities are limited. Professor Bassett is always careful about his facts. The emphasis is well proportioned and the maps well selected. There are no illustrations. The subject matter of the volume is treated in a purely conventional way and differs very radically in this respect from Professor West's History and Government. If one could apply the terms of politics to history writing Bassett's book is conservative and West's progressive. Professor West is widely known as a textbook writer and is just as careful of his facts and proportion as Professor Bassett, but he has had a different purpose in mind. He views history not merely as political history. "The growth of our political democracy has been intertwined with the development of our economic and industrial conditions. I have tried to make this interaction the pervading principle in determining the arrangement and selection of material. * * * [and] I should not have cared to write the book at all, if I had not believed that a fair presentation of American history gives to American youth a robust and aggressive faith in democracy. At the same time, I have tried to correct the common delusion which looks back to Jefferson or John Winthrop for a golden age, and to show instead that democracy has as yet been tried only imperfectly among us." West's selection of material has been well made with this end in view. The book is stimulating and suggestive and will meet with hearty approval from those who are disciples of the "new history" and will throw a flood of new light upon the subject for those who have studied and taught history in the conventional way. With the spread of democracy, such books as West's are bound to grow in number and use. EDWARD MCMAHON. * * * * * WRITINGS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. Edited by Worthington Ford. (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1913. Vol. 2, 1796-1801. Pp. 531. $3.50 net.) Volume 1 of this important set was noted in the Quarterly for April, 1913, page 131. As noted there, the readers in the Pacific Northwest are awaiting with interest the subsequent volumes containing the record of John Quincy Adams in the diplomacy of Old Oregon. * * * * * DECISIONS, JULY, 1912, TO JULY, 1913. By United States Geographic Board. (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1913. Pp. 54.)