JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . The MIT Press and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal of Interdisciplinary History are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Interdisciplinary History. University Press, 1969) 250 pp. $5.50 Comment peut-on etre Breton: Essai sur la democratiefranfaise. By Morvan Lebesque (Paris, Seuil, I970) 239 pp. I8 f.No twist of the historical dialectic of modern societies was more unlikely than the appearance in the last ten years of ethnic nationalism in the old European nations. Althouigh many in postwar Europe predicted that the nation-state would dissolve into a larger political entity under the pressure of economic and social forces that could no longer be contained within a single national community, virtually no one foresaw that the state would be subjected to pressures from within for a dismantling of the nation. These pressures have been of two kinds: for redistributing power between the central government and regional authorities, and for granting some measure of self-government to ethnically distinct minorities. Demands for regional decentralization and ethnic autonomy, however logically distinct, have been curiously symbiotic, and in recent times they appear to have common origins. Once in motion, the pressures seem to feed on each other: The only political movements for regional reform that have acquired a mass following have been those founded in regions whose populations are ethnically distinct from the national population.Broadly speaking, there are two different ethnic problems in Europe. The "old" ethnic problem is that of the ethnic minorities left on the wrong side of national frontiers by the vagaries of war and international decision. The German speakers of Bolzano province in Italy and the French "Jurassiens" of Switzerland are examples of politically mobilized ethnic minorities in this situation, but the number of such cases is now few. The "new" ethnic problem in Europe is regional ethnicity: the organization of political demands and protest by groups whose constituency is drawn from regionally contiguous individuals of common ethnic origin. The supporters of regional ethnic

It is surprising that while there is a considerable literature dealing with the reform of the civil service from the time of Burke to the setting up of the Civil Service Commission in 1855, very little attention has been paid to the final stages of reform following the introduction of open competition in 1870. Yet it was in this period that patronage ceased to be of importance and the modern civil service developed. The Order in Council of 4 June 1870 which made open competition the normal method of entry to the civil service enormously reduced the scope of patronage, but it did not kill it immediately. Right up to the First World War remnants of the old system lingered in most departments, although by then a lavish system of honours and subsidies from the party funds had displaced the most objectionable forms of political patronage. The purpose of this article is to give some indication

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After the rising of 1745 the Highlands were rapidly tamed: within quite a short period the young men who in a past generation would have rallied to the support of their chiefs in domestic disputes, were gradually drawn off to fight in foreign wars, to settle in the colonies, or to help govern India. By the time of the great Sutherland clearances of 1807–20 the Highlands had been so far pacified that scarcely a hand was raised against the destruction of much-loved homes. Gradually the impression got abroad that the descendants of Rob Roy were gentle creatures, a bit rough perhaps in their habits, but easily domesticated and loyal to the powers that be in church and state. And this impression seemed to be confirmed by Queen Victoria's experiences at Balmoral, and by the friendly reception given to the wealthy tourists whom the works of Sir Walter Scott lured to the Highlands.

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