NOTE OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT


The author begs to acknowledge his general indebtedness to a veritable
host of historical writers, of whose original researches or secondary
compilations he has constantly and almost unblushingly made use in the
preparation of this book. At the close of the _Introduction_ will
be found a list of the major works dealing with the whole period under
review, or with the greater part of it, which have been drawn upon most
heavily. And there is hardly a book cited in any of the special
bibliographies following the several chapters that has not supplied
some single fact or suggestion to the accompanying narrative.

For many of the general ideas set forth in this work as well as for
painstaking assistance in reading manuscript and correcting errors of
detail, the author confesses his debt to various colleagues in Columbia
University and elsewhere. In particular, Professor R. L. Schuyler has
helpfully read the chapters on English history; Professor James T.
Shotwell, the chapter on the Commercial Revolution; Professor D. S.
Muzzey, the chapters on the French Revolution, Napoleon, and
Metternich; Professor William R. Shepherd, the chapters on "National
Imperialism"; and Professor Edward B. Krehbiel of Leland Stanford
Junior University, the chapter on recent international relations.
Professor E. F. Humphrey of Trinity College (Connecticut) has given
profitable criticism on the greater part of the text; and Professor
Charles A. Beard of Columbia University, Professor Sidney B. Fay of
Smith College, and Mr. Edward L. Durfee of Yale University, have read
the whole work and suggested several valuable emendations. Three