ABSTRACT
Although, strictly, this period has by now escaped the confines of ‘contemporary history’, it still labours under the well-known difficulties attending upon that genre, more especially the mixture of enormous mountains of materials on the one hand and inaccessible sources of information on the other. This has not, of course, prevented a perfect flood of writings, and the two wars in particular have breached every dam. Now that the archives are being opened more rapidly, and private papers are being more readily offered, one may expect an ever swelling torrent. All of this makes anything resembling complete coverage even more impossible than it was in the earlier sections, the only consolation being that a great deal of the stuff that pours forth is clearly not going to stand the test of time. I have therefore confined myself essentially to the works of professional historians and especially to those which seem, at least, to avoid the air of evanescence and parti pris.
