vi Preface
dreams of Alexander are found to have produced no tangible effect. This volume closes on the threshold of other and greater changes, whose effect on the European polity is not yet exhausted.
We have been fortunate in securing the cooperation of distinguished foreign scholars for chapters which deal with the affairs of France, Italy, Spain, Russia, and Poland. Economic changes and economic thought have received due attention ; and place has been found for the great literary movements in England, France, and Germany. In some cases a retrospect has enabled us to do justice to developments which it was difficult to consider in conjunction with the tumultuous politics of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras.
Russian and Polish orthography have presented a difficult problem. The compromise between a phonetic and the native spelling which we have adopted is not and cannot be in all respects satisfactory ; but the correct native spelling of Polish names would involve the use of an alphabet unknown to most of our readers; and a purely phonetic spelling would be too great a deviation from customary usage. In one case we have deliberately retained the familiar German transliteration. General Diebitsch might not have been recognised as Dybicz.
Our cordial thanks are due to all those who have cooperated with us in this portion also of our enterprise for the great pains which they have taken in contributing to its progress.
A. W. W.
G. W. P.
S. L.
Cambridge,
April, 1907.