When Sidney Smith posed his long list of rhetorical questions about America in the Edinburgh Review, he did not specifically mention preachers though there were some clergymen in the list he put forth; but we can assume that he no more expected his readers to listen to an American sermon than to read an American book.

But, while he was writing, forces were gathering in America that were to have considerable influence on Great Britain. That the United States was ‘a cultural province’ of Great Britain was true for long after the Revolution but the cultural influence was not limited to receiving. By the middle of the nineteenth century there was already a considerable impact by America on Great Britain. It was not perhaps at the level of the learned and distinguished; but there were many who had not read Mrs. Trollope's diatribes or listened to Charles Dickens's complaints, who were prepared to learn from America. True, much of their information was prejudiced, much of it gave them a sense of moral superiority over those wicked American slaveowners; yet they knew there were many in America who felt as they felt, were moved by the same zeal as moved them, and loved the same things as they loved.

That the author of an important Education Act and a best-selling History of Europe should have had the inclination and energy to write a spirited study of Christian Science comes as a surprise to many. In spite of the fact that H. A. L. Fisher's Our New Religion (first published, London, 1929) was circulated after 1933 in the cheap and widely-read series of rationalist works, “The Thinker's Library”, this lively little volume still remains relatively unknown on both sides of the Atlantic.

Yet Fisher's book has had its champions. His biographer, Mr. David Ogg, calls it “the best-written of all Fisher's books and one of the finest pieces of English which this century has yet produced.” And Professor Gilbert Murray declared of it that “Seldom can destructive criticism have been delivered with greater urbanity.” If there is an evident element of exaggeration in such statements, they do serve to draw attention to a book which ought not to be neglected by anyone who is interested in American studies.

Three readers of the Bulletin have provided us with notes which supplement and correct the review-article, “Confederate Sympathizers in the British Working Class” which appeared in Bulletin No. 5, pp. 11–14.

DAS JAHRBUCH FÜR AMERIKASTUDIEN (Im Auftrag der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien) published its first volume (Heidelberg: Carl Winter's Universitätsverlag, pp. 212), edited by Dr. Walter Fischer, of Marburg University, in 1956, and it is a welcome addition to the small but growing numbers of specialist periodicals in this field published outside the United States.

Several of the papers printed in this first volume of the Jahrbuch were first presented at the foundation meeting of the German Association for American Studies, which took place in June 1953, making that society an elder brother – or sister – of the British Association for American Studies by some two years, but a number of others, including the two longest, are specially contributed. The Gorman Association started its activities strongly, thanks largely to the encouragement given to American studies in Germany by the Cultural Officers of the United States Military Government and High Commission there in the years following 1945. After twelve years of enforced ‘subjectivity’ in the study of the United States the return to objective scholarship was at times a difficult task, and it cannot be denied that interest in American studies, especially during the difficult years 1945–48, tended to follow the dollar rather than any more esoteric goal. All sorts of people in Germany discovered a hitherto unsuspected interest in the history and culture of the United States when their pursuit also meant heated rooms, good meals, P.X. privileges and, eventually, an Amerika-Institut financed from across the Atlantic – or even, possibly, a sponsored visit to the United States.

(As the work of the Survey nears completion, its officers have little time to spare for tasks other than those that are necessary to bring this pioneering project to a conclusion. We are, therefore, indebted to Dr. Bernard Crick, Assistant-Director of the Survey, now in the throes of the last round-up, for the following letter from the field. We notice that Dr. Crick has strayed a little outside his province in his admonitions to some historians. But as he and his assistants have had a unique opportunity of examining local historical sources in this country, his opinion deserves a hearing, and we hope that his advice to historians whoso footsteps are led almost magnetically to Chancery Lane will not pass unnoticed.)

The Bulletin welcomes news of interesting lectures on American subjects because they may suggest to members who are responsible for providing courses for extra-mural and university audiences fresh topics and methods of approach.

The death of John Bartlet Brebner removes from the community of Anglo-American historical scholarship a beloved and respected figure who will be especially mourned in the British Association for American Studies, not only because many of us were fortunate enough to come within the circle of his friendship, but because he was, in a sense, the Association's prophet.

“Bart” Brebner was one of those rare individuals whose academic interests and personal career are so satisfyingly interwoven as to result, not only in sound learning, but in wisdom; and he was one of a very small number to acquire such stature in the field of North Atlantic history. Born a Canadian of Scottish ancestry, the son of the Registrar of Toronto University, he served during the 1914–18 War in the British Army. As an ex-serviceman, he went up to St. John's College, Oxford where he read history with G. N. Clark, rowed in the first eight, and saw something of the world of post-war London. After returning to the University of Toronto, one of a distinguished vintage, of young graduate students and lecturers which included Lester Pearson and D. G. Creighton, he joined the staff at Columbia University in 1927; and from this New York vantage point he mastered the broad sweep of Atlantic history.