Download or read book Revival: A History of Modern Culture: Volume II (1934) written by Preserved Smith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-01-16 with total page 703 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The understanding of history can be advanced only by the combination or alternation, of analysis and synthesis. Detailed research and generalizing survey are not antiethical but complementary. For a long time, however, the specialist has reigned supreme in our schools. The need is now, surely, for a return to synoptic writing. The present work was undertaken to supply the need of a synthesis. It is a map of a large region, not a geological chart of a square mile or the plan of a single city. Its value, if any, lies in its view of the interrelations of large tracts of social and intellectual life, not in the intensive investigation of narrow fields.