CLEAR RECORD
THE MAKING OF MODERN HOLLAND. By A. J. Barnouw. George Allen and Unwin, | English price, 8/6. Tr O tell the truth attractively is the problem before an author who sets out to recount a national history im 200 pages or so. He has two courses-he may, as the railway time-table used to do, relate the facts at the expense of readability, or he may, as the roadside hoarding still does, achieve readability at the expense of the facts. Mr. Barnouw leans honourably, but not too austerely, towards the time-table. Without sparing his data, he contrives to make a broad picture emerge. The proportions are just, and, by devoting almost half his book to the hundred years after 1572 — Holland’s grand siécle, as one would agree-he refutes the fallacy implicit in his title, the fallacy which studies historical periods, not for their own sake, but as preludes to the present, and historical persons, not for their own sake, but as dear, dead folk whose enlightened posterity we living are. The expert in Dutch history, who no doubt exists, will, of course, discover grounds for cavil. He will be puzzled to find mention of Willibrord, but none of the greater Boniface, and disappointed at the summary reference to the experiment of union with Belgium after the Napoleonic wars, which is interesting either in retrospect from that point of time, or in prospect. But the general reader, who must also be assumed to exist, should be grateful for a clear record of a national history which made the unusual progress from republicanism to monarchy and which, by contrast’ and similarity, illuminates so provocatively the history of the British, The two people have shared Protestantism, a
liberal tradition, maritime and commercial aptitude, imperial propensity; yet how different their destinies! Mr. Barnouw’s book would be justified even if it were only to stir a few of its readers to ask themselves why, and to fall wondering about the conditions of national greatness and decay, and about what it is for a nation to be great or to
be decadent.
N.C.
P.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19490610.2.39.4
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 520, 10 June 1949, Page 19
Word count
Tapeke kupu
348CLEAR RECORD New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 520, 10 June 1949, Page 19
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Material in this publication is protected by copyright.
Are Media Limited has granted permission to the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa to develop and maintain this content online. You can search, browse, print and download for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Are Media Limited for any other use.
Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
Log in