EDITOR’S PREFACE IX 
facts with which they deal. Moreover, the work as a whole is planned 
to furnish its own corrective; and where it does not, others will. 
In addition to the monographic treatment of source material, a 
number of studies by specialists are already in preparation, dealing 
with technical or limited subjects, historical or statistical. These 
monographs also partake to some extent of the nature of first-hand 
material, registering as they do the data of history close enough to 
the source to permit verification in ways impossible later. But they 
also belong to that constructive process by which history passes 
from analysis to synthesis. The process is a long and difficult one, 
however, and work upon it has only just begun. To quote an apt 
characterization ; in the first stages of a history like this, one is only 
“picking cotton.” The tangled threads of events have still to be 
woven into the pattern of history; and for this creative and con- 
structive work different plans and organizations may be needed. 
In a work which is the product of so complex and varied codpera- 
tion as this, it is impossible to indicate in any but a most general 
way the apportionment of responsibility of editors and authors for 
the contents of the different monographs. For the plan of the His- 
tory as a whole and its effective execution the General Editor is 
responsible; but the arrangement of the detailed programs of study 
has been largely the work of the different Editorial Boards and 
divisional Editors, who have also read the manuscripts prepared 
under their direction. The acceptance of a monograph in this series, 
however, does not commit the editors to the opinions or conclusions 
of the authors. Like other editors, they are asked to vouch for the 
scientific merit, the appropriateness, and usefulness of the volumes 
admitted to the series; but the authors are naturally free to make 
their individual contributions in their own way. In like manner the 
publication of the monographs does not commit the Endowment to 
agreement with any specific conclusions which may be expressed 
therein. The responsibility of the Endowment is to History itself— 
an obligation not to avoid but to secure and preserve variant narra- 
tives and points of view, in so far as they are essential for the under- 
standing of the War as a whole. 
In the case of Russia, civil war and revolution followed so closely 
upon the World War that it is almost impossible for history to