Briefly Noted

Professor of History Louis Morton is one of four contributors to the volume, The Historian and the Diplomat (New York: Harper & Row. 1967. 213 pp. $6.95). Subtitled "The Role of History and Historians in American Foreign Policy," the book has been edited by Francis L. Loewenheim of Rice University. In his portion of the book, entitled "The Cold War and American Scholarship" (pp. 123-169), Professor Morton writes "... there is a strong tendency to orient scholarship toward current problems and to use the products of scholarship in support of policy. When the scholar deliberately chooses to work on current issues in an effort to influence the decision, to become in effect a 'policy scientist,' he is operating outside his field of special competence." This and other limitations, Professor Morton notes, do not nullify the possibility of historians contributing to an understanding of current problems and to the search for solutions, but they do underscore "the importance of objectivity and careful selection of appropriate areas of research."

Artist-photographer, and onetime Antarctic explorer, Nelson McClary '43 has provided ten clever drawings for the book, ToWin The Hunt, written by his wife Jane Mcllvaine McClary (Barre, Mass.: Barre Publishers. 1966. 100 pp. $7.50). This charming tale of "A Virginia Foxhunter in Ireland" (subtitle) was printed in elegant style for Barre Publishers by the Roderick Stinehour '50 press in Lunenburg, Vt. The McClarys are also "alumni" of Alumni College.

The journal and selected letters of John Ledyard, Class of 1776, relating to that early Dartmouth explorer's travels in Asia have been edited by Stephen Watrous and published as John Ledyard's Journey ThroughRussia and Siberia 1787-1788 (Madison, Wis.: The University of Wisconsin Press. 1966. 293 pp. $6.50). In addition to Ledyard's original writings the volume offers a biographical sketch of the explorer, a thoughtful presentation on "The Siberian Journey: Significance and Problems in Interpretation," and an interesting chapter on eighteenth-century Siberia.