The Hungarian Student, 1958 (3. évfolyam, 1-2. szám)
1958-10-01 / 1. szám
Book review «Facts About Hungary» Compiled and edited by Imre Kovács. New York: Hungarian Committee. First printing: September 1958; Second printing: October 1958; 280 pages, one map included in text. This collection of studies, dedicated to the memory of the freedom fighters who gave their lives for Hungary, was published on the second anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution. Two years after its suppression, the Hungarian question is still unsolved, even though the General Assembly of the United Nations, by an overwhelming majority, has passed several resolutions endeavouring to solve the problem. According to the editor, numerous books, articles reports and comments (some of them expressing contradictory opinion) have been published on the 1956 Revolution. To meet a reed, «Facts About Hungary» was published. It attempts to give an objective review, through the writings of recognized experts, of events which happened prior to, during and after the Revolution. The editor was faced by the regrettable fact that very little readable and up-todate general information on Hungary has been published in the English language. To make the events of the Revolution clear to readers, the editor found it necessary to deal briefly with Hungary’s history and to add in the appendix ethnic, social and economic data that are characteristic of Hungary. The book consists of seven closely inter-related chapters. The authors of the first chapter, which analyzes the history of the Hungarian people from its origins to the Second World War, are Imre Kovács, editor of the book, who before his departure from Hungary in 1947 was Secretary General of the National Peasant Party and whose book «The silent Revolution», was of revolutionary importance in the literature of pre-war Hungary as it exposed Hungary’s social conditions; and William Juhász, former Associate Professor of Comparative Cultural History at the University of Szeged and author of several books and studies. Both of them wrote their contributions from a sociological viewpoint, to which historians prefering general descriptive data, might object. This chapter, however, 18
