Nation 110:594 My 1 ’20 200w
“Mr Reade has no specific remedy to propose: that indeed is a merit of his essay, which is intended to make the reader think furiously, and which achieves its purpose.”
+ Spec 123:735 N 29 ’19 200w Survey 43:782 Mr 20 ’20 180w The Times [London] Lit Sup p679 N 20 ’19 300w
“Mr Reade’s book is one that provokes to disagreement; but for all that, perhaps even because of it, it demands to be read. After all, mere assent or dissent matters little compared with the pleasure to be derived from contact with so vigorous and sincere an intellect, and though we may traverse every one of his conclusions, it is with the sense that Mr Reade is, at least in spirit, on the side of the angels.”
+ − The Times [London] Lit Sup p728 D 11 ’19 1350w
READE, WINWOOD. Martyrdom of man; with an introd. by F. Legge. *$2.50 Dutton 909
“This book was published in 1872. Its author’s first intention was to write on the part which Africa had played in the world’s story. But the conception grew under his hands until it became a full-fledged philosophy of history. His guiding principle of explanation is given in the last pages of the book. ‘I give to universal history a strange but true title—“The martyrdom of man.” In each generation the human race has been tortured that their children might profit by their woes.’ The successive stages in this painful upward struggle he designates as war, religion, liberty, and intellect, and to each of them he devotes a section of his book. But another stage is yet to be traversed: we must in the interests of right thinking rid ourselves forever of anthropomorphic religion. It was mainly owing to Reade’s attack on Christianity that his book was passed over in disdainful silence by so many. ‘The martyrdom of man’ has now reached its twenty-first edition.”—Review
“Everything is made simple and clear with a few bold strokes, and the multiplicity of the trees never obscures the woods. The lively style is an added stimulus to the reader, for the author possessed an undeniable talent for direct and forcible statement. When he becomes enthusiastic in his narrative he can revivify the past as tellingly as Macaulay, whom he resembles also in the crispness of his sentences.” W. K. Stewart
+ Review 2:629 Je 16 ’20 1000w 550w Springf’d Republican p10 Mr 19 ’20