This series inaugurated by the Columbia University Press is intended to meet the needs of the English-speaking student for the crystallization of various phases of musical knowledge around which the rapidly expanding material may be oriented. The choice of the 1st volume of the series was dictated by the desire to provide an introductory manual which would be of interest to the beginner in musical history, since a scholarly view of the development of the art must be the foundation of scholarly research into special problems. The Outline of the History of Music by the late Professor Nef of Basle is such a work. It was written by a trained musicologist of broad tastes, who was reliable in his judgements concerning recent developments in musical history and also of its early phases.