Vox Loon or sue Ain—Hendsike Willem Van Loon-~George C, Harrop & Ca.
Usd, London. 1/6.
This stimulating and entertaining book affords Its readers the opporttunity of "listening in" to a series of recent broadcasts of Dr. Hendrik Van Loon, one of the most deservedly snd genuinely popular of the lecturers sponsored by the New York National Studio, By reason of their intense popularity, these lectures are of partly cular interest to English and Con-Unental readers inasmuch as they indicate the American attitude on present policies In Britain and Europe.
"The author, who s a naturalized American citizen, has a romantic background. He" was born in Hole Tand about fty years ago and from youth onward has been absorbingly Interested in the history of nations and peoples, and after devoting more than' a score of years to historical research and study, in the United States and in Burope, he became lecturer on this subject in American universities, and to-day he is one of the foremost of American. historians. During the Ruslan Revolution of 1906-7 and. again during the Great War, he was. Journalist and in this capacity he travelled all over Europe, and a few years later, as the result of his histotleal perspective and the preparation of years of intensive!
wrote "The Story of Mankind" and "The Home of Mankind," books which need no introduction to the discriminating reader, and which! met with phenomenal success both in the United States and abroad, and served to Introduce the writer to the literary and scholastic world as historian of brilliance and originality.
Broadcasts for the Masses The 36 lectures oF broadcasts in the book under review, gover a diversity fof subjects, domestic. national ang faternationat, and they were viously designed to interest and instruct the great mass of Americans who suffer generally from Ignorance of current events at home and abroad. and the history, and the significance! of the history, of the past snd its bearing on present day international polloies. The book has all the virile Hty, crispness of style and colloqualisms which American radio lodurers have found the best delivery medium for challenging and holding the in-deprecates prose" he explains the necessity for its use:
The human eye and the human ear do. not function Inthe. same way. You"ean write one sort of public that is going to. use I ut you have fo approach your sub-feet from an entirely different. ande Shen you write things for a public that in going to depend exclusively ripon its ears Im order to understand you Nevertheless, the lectures sain! strength, rather than lose.it by their informality, and the style and whimsical humour of the author make them very easy reading indeed. Where would one find amore entertaining eeltal of the writing of the famous] American Declaration of Tndependence (June-July, 1776) than the fol-Towing excerpt?
Originally the task of (getting up some ort of a definite statement that should tell the world. why the Tebel-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.