In the all-important matter of accuracy, the author cannot hope to have
escaped all the pitfalls that in a peculiarly broad and crowded field
everywhere trip the feet of even the most wary and persistent searchers
after truth. He has naturally been forced to rely for the truth of his
statements chiefly upon numerous secondary works, of which some
acknowledgment is made in the following _Note_, and upon the
kindly criticisms of a number of his colleagues; in some instances,
notably in parts of the chapters on the Protestant Revolt, the French
Revolution, and developments since 1848 in Great Britain, France, and
Germany, he has been able to draw on his own special studies of primary
source material, and in certain of these instances he has ventured to
dissent from opinions that have been copied unquestioningly from one
work to another.

No period of history can be more interesting or illuminating than the
period with which this book is concerned, especially now, when a war of
tremendous magnitude and meaning is attracting the attention of the
whole civilized world and arousing a desire in the minds of all
intelligent persons to know something of the past that has produced it.
The great basic causes of the present war the author has sought, not in
the ambitions of a single power nor in an isolated outrage, but in the
history of four hundred years. He has tried to write a book that would
be suggestive and informing, not only to the ordinary college student,
but to the more mature and thoughtful student of public affairs in the
university of the world.

CARLTON J. H. HAYES. AFTON, NEW YORK, May, 1916.