The Government of European Cities
Cloth, 8vo, 409 pp., $2.00
"The most effective work now done in political science is that going on in the field of applied politics. Avoiding abstract principles and a priori speculation, it addresses itself to examination of the actual organization of public authority and of the way in which governmental function is carried out. In 'The Government of European Cities' (Macmillan), Prof. William Bennett Munro of Harvard has made a valuable addition to this literature. He gives a detailed account of the way in which municipal government is formed and carried on in France, Germany, and England. The style is clear, straightforward, and unpretentious, and the treatment is steadily confined to the subject in hand without any attempt to point a moral or aid a cause. At the same time references to American municipal methods frequently occur as incidents of the explanation of European procedure, and these add to the value of the book for American readers. The writing, while succinct, is copious in detail, and only administrative experts in the countries respectively considered could check off all the statements made; but the work itself affords intrinsic evidence of its painstaking accuracy. One cannot read the book without being deeply impressed by the essential simplicity of the principles upon which European municipal government is constituted."—The Nation.