Book Review: History of Switzerland. The First Hundred Thousand Years: Before the Beginnings to the Days of the Present

Authors

Lukas Burckhardt
Ernest Menolfi

Keywords

book review, Swiss literature, Swiss American Historical Society, Swiss history

Abstract

Includes two sections:

1. Homage to a fervent friend of Switzerland, J. Murray Luck

In my job as Swiss cultural attache in the United States I had the chance to get help and inspiration- from Americans who were in love with our country and who acted as our good will ambassadors. Quite sincerely aware of our own shortcomings, I had some difficulties in understanding their unswerving belief in our exemplary qualities. Finally, I had to admit that there must be a deeper reason behind this strange phenomenon. Maybe we really have, as a sober small state, a political mission in a world full of irrational conflicts - at least as long as we don't forget this duty in our period of fallacious prosperity.

2. A Historian's View

A reviewer roughly distinguishes between three groups of books. The first ones are unkindly reshuffled now and again and eventually eke out a miserable existence in the lower half of the notorious piles on or behind the desk. With other copies the reviewer stoically fulfills his duty, and then forgets them, no tinge of haunting his sleepless nights. Yet, books of a third type exert a strange attraction: they either strike him as unusual, stimulate, irritate, or provoke him. Although he is never at a loss for words with them, they are the most delicate to do justice to as they inevitably call for a subjective, biased judgment.

Recommended Citation

Burckhardt, Lukas and Menolfi, Ernest (1987) "Book Review: History of Switzerland. The First Hundred Thousand Years: Before the Beginnings to the Days of the Present," Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter: Vol. 23: Iss. 2, Article 3.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_newsletter/vol23/iss2/3