Professor Becker, one of America's most respected historians, has managed within the covers of this modest book to compress a vast amount of good common sense. His erudition and his capacity for lucid and arresting expression have enabled him to set forth clearly in these pages the proper historical background against which any realistic "peace planning" must be projected. He deflates much current wishful thinking and starry-eyed Utopianism, but without surrendering to pessimism or defeatism.