PEACE AND WAR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 731, 17 July 1953, Page 13

PEACE AND WAR

THE OXFORD JUNIOR ENCYCLOPAEDIA: Volume X, Law .and Order; Oxford University Press-Geoffrey Cumberlege. English price, 30/-. ()NCE again the task of concentrated exposition has been accomplished at the Oxford Press, and another volume of the Junior Encyclopaedia is on the shelf. It must this time have been a more difficult task than usual. Anthropology, astronomy, natural history-topics covered in earlier volumes-are areas of knowledge with more. simply defined frontiers than the sprawling provinces (continued on next page)

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(continued trom previous page) of social organisation, and it is evident that here the business of selection has been more exacting. The principal subjects covered in this volume are Government, Law and Justice, Public Finance, Education, Social Services, and Armed Forces-but the topic most difficult to control appears to have been War. Though organisation for war belongs properly to one of the six major divisions of the volume, war | itself stands in the shadow of Government and also on the ground occasionally vacated by Law and Justice, It is, therefore, not strange-though it is a little disturbing-to discover that about a quarter of the yolume sub-titled Law and Order is under armed. occupation. This apparent disequilibrium may be explained in part by the general plan of the Encyclopaedia. There is, in the main, a sensible and extensive integration of the volumes. Much that relates to Government is to be found in Volume | I (Mankind), Public Finance in various | forms is explained in Volume VI (Jn- _ dustry and Commerce), and: aspects of | Education are discussed in Volume IV (Communications) and Volume IX (Recreations)./ The theme of war may not have "spilled over" to the same extent and that may explain its concentration here. It could be argued with cogency that, as the converse or complement of law and order, war and disorder should be dealt with in the same place, but it is a shock to find Paratroops and Parish _ Government on facing pages. It is sad_dening, too, to discover that War has a history but Peace has not. A plainer objection to the plan of the volume, however, is that such juxtapositions may -incline young readers to assume that | there is an element of inevitability in. |} human conflict. If the Oxford Press /could have sanctioned an _ additional _volume on War and Peace youth might have been better served. Not that one can complain of the writing here; it is (as usual) simple, straightforward, and sensible. A supplementary volume, however, besides keeping war in its proper

place, would have enabled some of the problems of condensation to be avoided.

J.

M.