THE END OF AN ERA IN EUROPE
Netboy, Anthony
The End Of An Era In Europe THE PASSING OF THE EUROPEAN AGE, by Eric Fischer. Harvard University Press. $2.50. Reviewed by Anthony Netboy ALTHOUGH this has become a global war, Europe is to a...
...Not only is the major part of the war being fought on that harried and bloody continent, but the imperialistic rivalries of the European powers, particularly Britain, France, Holland, and Russia, helped enormously to set off'the Far Eastern conflict...
...Few flaws can be picked in tb.is thesis, and therefore it is recommended to those who are groping for their intellectual bearings amid the ceaseless crashing of shells and the din of cannon...
...Eric Fischer, in a scholarly and stimulating book, answers the question in the affirmative...
...Fischer has written if not a brilliant, at least a lucid and well-rounded book...
...The Passing of the European Age will be a tonic to anyone who tries to make sense out of the senseless slaughter that engulfs the world...
...Regardless of the outcome of the present war, the civilization of Europe will have been dealt a blow from which it may never recover...
...Adducing a wealth of evidence, Dr...
...Fischer, though subscribing to this thesis, is not a pessimist...
...Among all these rival centers, Europe's quest for political or economic leadership is hopeless...
...Fischer concludes that "the social and economic evolution of Europe seems to have reached a point where dangerous crises are unavoidable...
...Rather, he sees the passing of the European Age as a milestone in western civilization...
...Since the machinations of the European powers are the root and branch of the present war, it is pertinent to inquire whether the Europeans, who twice in one generation precipitated a world conflict, have not arrived at the end of their historical period...
...Dr...
...But Dr...
...Many of its centers of culture have been, or will be destroyed...
...In fact, is not the European Age, which dates from the Renaissance of the 15th Century, about to pass into limbo, leaving its cultural heritage to the peoples of other continents...
...A new—and per-haos a better—civilization is taking its place...
...Millions of its best manhood will have been plowed under and a large part of its industrial establishment shattered...
...The "new types of western civilization outside Europe—in America, in Australia, in ftiberia, and in South Africa—are strong enough to stand without Europe...
...Economic and social dislocation on a continental scale, plus the psychological shock of years of warfare, will make it extremely difficult for Europe to "come back...
...Even before the outbreak of the present conflict many thinkers promulgated the thesis that European civilization had passed its peak...
...Reviewed by Anthony Netboy ALTHOUGH this has become a global war, Europe is to a large extent the source of its infection...
...This new civilization has been created by the millions of Europeans who migrated overseas in the past four centuries...
Vol. 8 • May 1944 • No. 19
