Such is the tale, told eloquently, in an assiduously dispassionate manner, yet neither vapidly nor uncritically, cumulatively dismal in its effect on the reader. The ending is no ending; the book stops halfway before the tragic close—the expulsion of the Chinese Nationalist government from the mainland—almost as if the author wished to avert his eyes from the second four years of full frustration and defeat.

Social science writings have one thing in common with products of the artistic spirit—they readily lend themselves to dating by their “stylistic” traits. This is not a preferred manner for dating scientific products. Science, like technology, is generally regarded as cumulative in its development. To the extent that this is so, it is possible to place a scientific work in its historical position by examining the stage of knowledge that it reveals. However, the store of social science knowledge grows very slowly indeed. The result is that much of social science impresses one as being modern more by virtue of various stylistic traits than by demonstrable additions to, or modifications of, our stock of substantive (or methodological) knowledge.

In June 1952 a Social Science Research Council committee was established to take stock o? research on civil-military relations and make proposals with respect to the further development of research in this area. The members of the committee were not entirely satisfied with the phrase “civil-military relations” as describing the focus of their attention, but it was understood that the committee's interest lay in research bearing upon those problems of public policy which were posed by the prospect of a continuing high mobilization even in peace time, and by the continuing necessity for a careful coordination of military, diplomatic, and industrialization policy.

Biographical analysis has been a traditional device by which historians and social scientists have sought to relate changes in social structure to political developments. All too often, the richness of personal detail has been hung on a “great man” theory of history, without regard to the key leadership groups involved.

Not long ago, in 1946, when an outstanding economist was invited to join the staff of the United Nations, in the new branch of Economic Development, he asked, “Economic development? What is that?” Since then, he has been working intensively on the subject, as have a great many others; and if, before 1945, very little had been written on economic development, by now the literature has assumed the proportions of a flood. Before the war, business cycles were indubitably the favorite subject of professional writing; now, certainly, it is economic development.