Author | : Preserved Smith |
Publisher | : Routledge |
Total Pages | : 703 |
Release | : 2018-01-16 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 1351349473 |
The understanding of history can be advanced only by the combination or alternation, of analysis and synthesis. Detailed research and generalizing survey are not antiethical but complementary. For a long time, however, the specialist has reigned supreme in our schools. The need is now, surely, for a return to synoptic writing. The present work was undertaken to supply the need of a synthesis. It is a map of a large region, not a geological chart of a square mile or the plan of a single city. Its value, if any, lies in its view of the interrelations of large tracts of social and intellectual life, not in the intensive investigation of narrow fields.