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The earlier chapters rehearse Christian-Jewish relations in earlier centuries , from the time when the infant church first split from the mother synagogue. A cautionary word might have been in place here about the need to view the persecutions of Jews in the early church in historical perspective (not that this prOVides justification); before the church won the advantage of numbers and imperial acceptance, persecution was not always a one-way affair, as the incident of the death of Polycarp shows, and a Tertullian could be as abusive about fellow-Christians as he could about Jews. Allowance should also be made for some exaggeration in the author's estimate of the degree of anti-Jewish tendentiousness in that corpus of almost entirely Jewish documents called the New Testament, and his partisan interpretation of those documents should not be too readily accepted as the COnsensus doctorum (it is possible that the trial of Jesus by Jewish authorities was not an official act of the full Sanhedrin , but to say on p. 28 that "no Jewish trial of Jesus ever took place" is to show an excess of historical scepticism that cannot fairly be claimed to reRect "enlightened opinion"). But when the bias of interpretation has so long been against the Jews, it may be churlish to protest, and the effect may even be salutary, when the bias goes the other way. (R. F. G. SWEET) SOCIAL STUDIES NATIONAL AND INTERNAnONAL Many Canadian authors and photographers joined to celebrate the centennial of their country by prodUCing illustrated books. In a tribute to the history and geography of the land some of these excel in pictorial quality. An Historical Almanac of Canada (McClelland and Stewart, $6.95) is a unique grab-bag of miscellaneous and odd facts, anecdotes, ancient recipes, snatches of folk verse, advertisements for patent medicines , popular rememes for chilblains and other maladies, verbal nuggets from public speeches, and an assortment of illustrations no less mverse and interesting edited by Lena Newman. Here are gleanings from newspapers, old books and journals, and those fascinating agents of popular enlightenment and entertainment, the nineteenth-century 514 LEITERS IN CANADA almanacs. Mrs. Newman includes samples of bucolic humour, like the extract from the Prince Edward Island Calendar of 1837: "Corsets were invented by a cruel butcher as a punishment for his wife. She was very loquacious. ... He put stays On her to take away her breath and prevent her talking. This was inflicted by other heartless husbands. Ladies in their defence made a fashion of it." Public inns are not neglected. The Hotel Macleod, in Alberta, was known throughout the west in the 1880s, despite its very demanding guest rules, some of which read: When guests lind themselves or their luggage thrown over the fence, they may consider that they have received notice to quit. Valuables will not be locked in the hotel safe. The hotel has no such ornament. The bar will be open day and night. Day drinks, 50 cents; night drinks, $1.00. No mixed drinks will be served except in case of a death in the family. Guests without baggage must sleep in the vacant lot, and board elsewhere until their luggage arrives. Guests are forbidden to strike matches or spit on the ceiling or to sleep in bed with their boots on. There is an aimless and haphazard air about Mrs. Newman's compilation . Items on any page have little relation to One another, and some could be eliminated without loss. Casualness is surely carried to excess in omitting pagination and some fonn of index. A reader must come to this book with an eager desire to browse and must overlook its disjOintedness. He may not be rewarded by much solid historical fare, but will often be amused and driven to the sources. Canada ( Ryerson, 144, $19.95), edited by Earle Toppings, collects seventeen brief essays by as many authors on different aspects of the country: people, climate, Rora, wildlife, the principal regions, industry, and natural resources. The essays are supplemented by sketch maps and black and white and colour photographs. The authors have competence, although the enforced brevity of their essays hardly offers them much scope. Diamond Jenness...

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