Books in Brief

The Fall of Constantinople 1453, by Steven Runciman (Cambridge, $6.95). For nearly a thousand years following the fall of Rome, the chief city of Christendom was Constantinople. From their lovely capital beside the Bosporus, the Byzantine emperors ruled over wide realms of the former Roman Empire, and successfully defended this citadel of the Christian faith against the Saracens. But Christendom was divided, and Byzantium grew old and tired, and at last, in 1453, its hour came. Against the 80,000 troops of young Sultan Mehmet II (“The Conqueror”), the Emperor Constantine Paleologus could assemble less than seven thousand to man the ancient walls of Constantinople. Steven Runciman tells the story of those final days clearly, crisply and colorfully, and in his quiet British way reaches heights of a sort as he describes the calm that preceded the final assault: a lovely afternoon in late May, when everyone who could be spared from the ramparts thronged St. Sophia, the great Church of the Holy Wisdom, where Roman and Orthodox prelates, side by side at last, served a final communion to a populace no longer divided, and prayed for the miracle that never came. w. A. rusher

The Meaning of Europe, by Denis de Rougemont (Stein and Day, $3.95). The essence of the West, says M. de Rougemont in this excellent little book, is the European spirit; for Europeans discovered the world, conquered it, and created its greatness. Indeed, since the period of discoveries, the civilization of Europe has permeated the entire world, extending itself into those parts that would destroy it. But the author is not so much concerned with the rest of the world as he is with the idea of Europe; Europe, united and dynamic, fascinates him. It is the idea of a united Europe, he notes, which has haunted and excited great Europeans from the time of Dante’s De Monarchia to Jean Monnet’s Common Market, and it is this potential unity which Europe’s enemies seek to destroy. After presenting the pro-unity proposals of such seminal thinkers as Pierre DuBois, Emeric Cruce, Saint-Simon, Proudhon, and Nietzsche, he turns to Jean-Paul Sartre, who sees European civilization in the convulsions of death. The history of Europe, for Sartre, is a history of constant oppression, which can only be atoned for by surrendering to the enemy, by making common cause with the FLN and the Angolans. This, says de Rougemont, is a philosophy that is suicidal. The meaning of Europe can be found in the history of liberty, equality, and the concept of the dignity of man—all of which have nothing to do with oppression. In an age all too likely to disregard the Western achievement, the author insists that Europeans, and not Africans or Arabs or Chinese, conceived the world as we know it today. P. P. witonski

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The Fall of Constantinople 1453, by Steven Runciman (Cambridge, $6.95). For nearly a thousand years following the fall of Rome, the chief city of Christendom was Constantinople. From their lovely capital beside the Bosporus, the Byzantine emperors ruled over wide realms of the former Roman Empire, and successfully defended this citadel of the Christian faith against the Saracens. But Christendom was divided, and Byzantium grew old and tired, and at last, in 1453, its hour came. Against the 80,000 troops of young Sultan Mehmet II (“The Conqueror”), the Emperor Constantine Paleologus could assemble less than seven thousand to man the ancient walls of Constantinople. Steven Runciman tells the story of those final days clearly, crisply and colorfully, and in his quiet British way reaches heights of a sort as he describes the calm that preceded the final assault: a lovely afternoon in late May, when everyone who could be spared from the ramparts thronged St. Sophia, the great Church of the Holy Wisdom, where Roman and Orthodox prelates, side by side at last, served a final communion to a populace no longer divided, and prayed for the miracle that never came. w. A. rusher

The Meaning of Europe, by Denis de Rougemont (Stein and Day, $3.95). The essence of the West, says M. de Rougemont in this excellent little book, is the European spirit; for Europeans discovered the world, conquered it, and created its greatness. Indeed, since the period of discoveries, the civilization of Europe has permeated the entire world, extending itself into those parts that would destroy it. But the author is not so much concerned with the rest of the world as he is with the idea of Europe; Europe, united and dynamic, fascinates him. It is the idea of a united Europe, he notes, which has haunted and excited great Europeans from the time of Dante’s De Monarchia to Jean Monnet’s Common Market, and it is this potential unity which Europe’s enemies seek to destroy. After presenting the pro-unity proposals of such seminal thinkers as Pierre DuBois, Emeric Cruce, Saint-Simon, Proudhon, and Nietzsche, he turns to Jean-Paul Sartre, who sees European civilization in the convulsions of death. The history of Europe, for Sartre, is a history of constant oppression, which can only be atoned for by surrendering to the enemy, by making common cause with the FLN and the Angolans. This, says de Rougemont, is a philosophy that is suicidal. The meaning of Europe can be found in the history of liberty, equality, and the concept of the dignity of man—all of which have nothing to do with oppression. In an age all too likely to disregard the Western achievement, the author insists that Europeans, and not Africans or Arabs or Chinese, conceived the world as we know it today. P. P. witonski