SOURCE: Scott-Thomas, Rolfe. “Informal History.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 1603 (20 October 1932): 760.

In the following review, Scott-Thomas finds Just the Other Day to be lacking in the appropriate gravity and perspective.

Mr. John Collier and Mr. Iain Lang, the authors of Just the Other Day—an “Informal History of Great Britain Since the War,” as the sub-title runs—acknowledge their indebtedness for their main idea to Mr. F. L. Allen, who treated the post-War years in America in his book Only Yesterday. But an earlier and better example of this kind of writing is to be found in Mr. R. H. Gretton's Modern History of the English People, which ends at the year 1922. Mr. Gretton reviewed all aspects of the national life, serious and light, with equal breadth, versatility and vivacity, but with more essential gravity.

Gravity the present book undoubtedly lacks, and that implies the absence of a sense...