Notes on Current Books

certain just what ideas they wore. A North American sociologist, now cultural attache” in Rio, here earns his countrymen’s gratitude by making accessible in concise, readable summary the writings and doctrines of the great intellectuals (pen-sadores) who have shaped Latin American thought over the past century: Alberdi, Sarmiento, Rodo, Ingenieros, Freyre, Marti, Vasconcelos, and many others. Indebted as these men have often been to Europe and ourselves, they exhibit, as Professor Crawford shows, originality and brilliance in their endeavors to understand and solve the immense problems of their national environment. Against the ideological background one can now see in truer perspective such contemporary Latin American issues as the struggle of democracy and nationalism for the Argentine soul, the place of the Indian and the Negro in the body social, immigration policy, attitude toward the United States, or reaction to the magnetic pull of the Spanish, French, and Anglo-Saxon cultural traditions.  Harvard $8.60

The Green Continent, by German Arcinie-gas.

To describe this amazing hook as simply an anthology on Latin-American civilization, extracted from Latin-American writers and grouped under the five heads of Landscape and Man, the March of Time, Bronzes and Marbles, The Cities, and The Color of Life, is to miss its unusual interest and brilliant accomplishment. For essentially it offers to the North American reader: a magnificent panorama of Latin-American development from Pre-Conquest times to the complex, changing present; a portrait of Latin America seen through Latin-American eyes; an introduction to Latin-American literature, the well-chosen samples of which here will certainly whet appetite for more; and the editor’s personal interpretation of the Green Continent, evident not only in the principle of selection but also in the finely written introductory and connective passages. The whole work shows Arciniegas at his best as writer, critic, scholar, and

indefatigable Good Neighbor from the great Republic of Colombia.

Knopf $3,50

Timeless Mexico, by Hudson Strode.

Mexico’s “ironic story,” says Hudson Strode, “is strung with contradictions and incredible happenings.” Such paradoxical and romantic material lends itself well to a colorful, dramatic treatment and this is what the reader finds in this timely book on “Timeless Mexico.” After a “prelude” on the Aztec civilization and the Mon-tezumas, the story of Mexico from the Spanish conquest under Cortes to the present is graphically told—the long colonial rule, the coining of independence in the early nineteenth century, the brief conflict with the United States, the tragic interlude of Maximilian and his pathetic queen, the heroic Juarez, the long line of dictatorial presidents, and the present amicable relations between us and our Southern neighbor. This epic narrative, enlivened with melodrama, is intensely interesting. It is brilliantly written, spiced with touches of ironical humor, but always in » spirit of understanding sympathy.

Harcourt, Brace $3.50

One Day on Beetle Rock, by Sally Car-righar. Illustrated by Henry B. Kane,

With acuteness, sensitiveness, and charm Miss Carrighar has recorded what happened on Beetle Rock on June 18 to the Weasel, the Sierra Grouse, the Chickaree, the Black Bear, the Lizard, the Coyote, the Deer Mouse, the Steller Jay, and the Mule Deer Buck. In the latter of these she sees “the best example, among all the Beetle Rock animals, of the willing tension that keeps a wilderness society stable. Hid was the finest alertness, but every creature had much of it. Since long before he was born, the community here had been holding together, because each of its members was ready to leap, to chase, to freeze, to threaten, to love, or to step aside —in an instant.” In her watching Miss Carrighar must have absorbed much of the fine alertness of the animals whose careers and lives she has noted, for no detail of behavlw or appearance seems to have escaped her. The result is an exciting book of natural history in which the facts and incidents of animal life have been heightened and dramatized, but not falsified or sentimentalized.  Knopf $2.75

That Vanishing Eden—A Naturalist’s Florida, by Thomas Barbour.

Florida is still an Eden, even though Dr. Thomas Barbour shows that it will not long be so unless all lovers of the beautiful and unique in Florida take a firm stand to prevent its spoilage and ultimate ruin. This book is primarily of interest to people who have visited Florida, especially those who have known it for the past thirty or forty years. But it also relates much that should awaken interest in all responsive people who plan a visit, long or short, to this unusual part of our nation. To the naturalist and the scientist who do not know Florida it will open many fascinating vistas.  Little, Brown $8

Steamboats Come True, by James Thomas Flexner.

Years of experimentation by various persons were necessary before the steamboat “came true.” The later years of the eighteenth century witnessed many efforts both in Europe and America to propel water-craft by steam. At least three men were successful in this—James Rumsey of Virginia (a friend of Washington), John Fitch of Connecticut, and Robert Fulton of Pennsylvania. Fitch, a rugged and errant mechanical genius, launched a steamboat on the Delaware River in 1790 which traveled several thousand miles on a regular schedule. Rumsey and Fulton were also busy, soliciting aid in France and England as well as at home. Fulton offered to Napoleon and then to Pitt a plan for a submarine about which lie seems to have been more concerned than about a steamboat proper; Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson were interested. Ceaseless litigation, recrimination, and experimentation marked these years, John Fitch being the stormy petrel of the waterways. Finally, Fulton launched his boat on the Hudson in 1807. And so, despite the will-continuing controversy as to who invented the steamboat, the school books are right in ascribing the honor to Robert Ful-ton.

 Viking $3.50 WAR & PEACE

The Four Fears, by Elbert D. Thomas.

One of our ablest and most scholarly Senators, Elbert Thomas of Utah, has utilized his wide experience nnd understanding of political forces in an effort to. sweep aside some of the fears which often paralyze a people at the moment when constructive decisions and effective action arc vital to their welfare. Senator Thomas logically attacks our current fears of idealism, of alliances, of Britain and the Soviet Union, and of revolution. After a stimulating discussion of the limitations of the national-frontier concept upon economic and social co-operation of peoples, he concludes with a pica for American leadership in establishing international machinery for maintaining peace.

Ziff-Davis $3

The Road to Serfdom, by Friedrich A. Hayek.

Mr. Hayek, distinguished Austrian economist and resident in England, expresses with alarm a warning that, in his opinion, England and other democracies, by their increasing espousal of economic planning, arc moving dangerously and blindly down the path to the totalitarian state pioneered by Germany. His thesis is a challenge to socialists both of the Right and of the Left, a plea for the preservation of economic, and, consequently, political individualism against irresponsible and crushing bureaucracy. Notwithstanding its weaknesses which result from a negative approach, from underemphasis of the differences in political and cultural heritage between England and Germany, and from nn indirect endorsement of limited planning, this brilliant but controversial little book is a genuine contribution to current political thought. It deserves a wide audience.  Chicago $2.75

Prejudice: Japanese-Americans, Symbol of Racial Intolerance, by Carey McWil-liams.

In this careful, sober study, Carey Mo-

Williams traces the history of the Japanese minority in America from the cessation of Japanese immigration to the removal, in the spring of 1942, of Japanese-American citizens to “relocation centers.” This unprecedented and constitutionally doubtful step, unnecessary for the large Japanese minority in vulnerable Hawaii, had its origin, according to McWilliams, in racial prejudice fostered by unscrupulous West Coast politicians rather than in military necessity. He correctly emphasizes the handicap such discrimination imposes on American foreign policy, the basis it gave to anti-American propaganda in the Orient fostered by Japanese militarists, and he urges the end of undemocratic racial discrimination and continuation of the process of assimilation under way before Pearl Harbor.

Little, Brown $3

The Vigil of a Nation, by Lin Yutang.

A distinguished philosopher and teacher revisits his native China during her seventh year at war and tells of what he sees, hears, and feels. He writes with wit, and with a variety of pertinent detail. But somehow he fails to satisfy. Perhaps his volume is too slender for the material he would compress within it. Perhaps because he sees the Chungking government in terms of light, the guerilla Communists in terms of total darkness, he inclines the render to doubt the objectivity of his reporting. He concludes by summing up China’s needs, for industrialization, for national unity, and for a sounder democracy, which he defines as “the inherent desire of private individuals to shove their rulers about, and the free exercise of their intelligence to tell their rulers what to do and what not to do.” He believes democracy will be achieved when the vigil of the threatening night is past.

John Day $2.75

Argentine Riddle, by Felix J. Weill.

In this important economic study, containing much statistical material not readilv available elsewhere, a native Argentine business man and former government official, now residing in the United States, ably answers the challenge of his title. He believes his country can never achieve democratic political institutions or social well-being as long as it continues to be dominated by the ancient alliance of land-owning oligarchy and foreign, mainly British, capital, the primary aim of which is to preserve the agricultural, stockraising, and consequently “colonial” status quo. Only through indispensable and long overdue industrialization can Argentina break the grip of these powerful reactionary forces and advance to democratic levels. Even the present Fascist regime, fervently supported as it is by the estanciero class, cannot ignore this dilemma: without industrialization the Argentine cannot be militarily powerful; with it she is not likely to remain long the prey of undemocratic forces.  John Day $3.50

Escape via Berlin, by Jose Antonio de Aguirre.

In 1940 when the German flood swept over the Low Countries, Aguirre, once president of the short-lived Basque Republic and then an exile in Belgium, faced arrest by the Gestapo, deportation to Spain, and, like his fellow-democrat, President Companys of Catalonia, death at Franco’s hands. He outwitted the Nazis by running toward, not away from danger; as a traveling Panamanian lie “escaped” into Germany, spent weird weeks in Berlin, and ultimately, with his family, reached New York via Sweden and Rio. Exciting as this is, the most moving and significant pages arc those in which Aguirre, a sincere Catholic, crystallizes the bitter lessons he and his largely Catholic followers learned from the Spanish War: the tragic folly of the Christian world’s support of totalitarian and pro-Axis Franco, and the desperate need for religious circles here and abroad to awaken to the anti-Christian as well as the anti-democratic consequences of Fascism in Spain, Europe, and Latin America.  Macmillan $8

Brave Men, by Ernie Pyle. Unpretentious, earnest, dogged chroni-

cles like Ernie Pyle’s may not prove to be the epics of this war, but they are surely the source of epics. In this current volume no branch of the armed services is neglected and each is given its individual and fair share of praise; yet here, too, as in his earlier book, Mr, Pylereturns again and again to the grim and muddy annals of the infantry. The average reader may grow a little tired of names and addresses, unless he recognizes them, but he will not lose interest in the vignettes of action and reaction that accompany them. At first glance, “Brave

Men” seems simple and artless, and is well calculated to seem so. Actually, it is well planned for variety and inclusiveness, if not for style. Ernie Pyle is definitely not a stylist (nor would most of his readers want him to be), but he is a good and satisfying writer in the sense that plain bread and butter is good and satisfying. His accumulation of facts and stories and little human incidents takes the edge off of our hunger to know all of these things and many more.

Holt $3

George Kiddie’s War Drawings.

These drawings by a distinguished American artist constitute a memorable record of the American campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. No single pen-and-ink sketch or water color need be singled out for comment: the effect of this book is cumulative. Above all, the artist has depicted, without anger or sentimentality, the terrible, impersonal waste of war, waste of flesh and spirit and resources. We sec it in the tired eyes of American soldiers, in the serene body of a little girl killed in a bombing raid, in the burned-out hulks of crashed planes, in the graves which dot the landscape from Moteur to Cassino, and in the diseased cadavers awaiting burial in the choked morgues of Naples.  Duell, Sloan & Pearce $3

HISTORY

The Completion of American Independence, by John Allen Krout and Dixon Ryan Fox. With the publication of this fifth volume in the series, Schlesinger and Fox’ “History of American Life” is complete. This is the most ambitious work of collaborative scholarship in the field of United States History since the publication of the “Dictionary of American Biography.” Social history is difficult to write, for the material is practically unlimited, and it fits Into no obvious pattern. The authors of this volume have handled the problem with marked success. They have collected materials from thousands of obscure sources and have fashioned them, into a work that has as much cohesion as the diverse nature of the subject permits. They have faced the intellectual poverty of the early Republic without chauvinism, and the result is an illuminating, yet wholesomely disillusioning, treatise.

Macmillan $4

The Dissidence of Dissent, by Francis K. Mineka.

This is the history of The Monthly Repository, 1806-1838, which was first an organ of English Unitarianism and later a champion of philosophical Radicalism. It was a significant hut never a powerful force during a generation when Britain was a hot bed of political and religious controversy. This history of the journal is introduced by a chapter on early Unitarianism and another on English religious periodicals from 1700 to 1825. Naturally the work lacks cohesion.

North Carolina $4

Foreign Influences in American Life, edited by David F. Bowers,

“Foreign influences in America have poured in through many different channels, have affected in one way or another almost every phase of our national life, and have operated continuously throughout our history,” states David F. Bowers in the first of a group of eight provocative essays constituting this second volume in the “Princeton Studies in American Civilization.” These essays, tracing the effect on American society and culture of alien sociological, political, philosophical, and artistic tendencies, are accompanied by excellent critical bibliographies.

Princeton $8

Netherlands India, by J. S. Furnivall,

This is the American edition of one of the most scholarly and authoritative recent works on the Dutch East Indies, Mr. Furnivall, formerly of the Indian Civil Service in Burma, traces in detail the historical development of the plural society of this colonial area, emphasizing the economic development but treating very adequately the social, political, and administrative aspects. The wealth of detailed material has been lucidly and logically handled.  Macmillan $4

A History of Russia, by Sir Bernard Pares.

Pares is too good an historian to imagine that even the gigantic events of the last four years represent more than an episode, though a vastly important one, in Russia’s long, stirring history. Nevertheless, the chief interest of the fourth edition of this justly standard work lies in the judiciously proportioned final chapter on Stalin’s Russia, 1928-1044. Here is the background of the Russo-German War: internally, the relentless struggle through the Five Year Plans to industrialize the Soviet Union; externally, the abandonment, quickened by growing fear of Nazi aggression, of militant Internationalism for collaboration with the democracies. Out of Russian conviction that Franco-British appeasement’s real goal was turning Hitlerism cast came the “elaborate poker-game” of the RussoGerman Pact (1089), which terminated on June 22, 1941, in the long anticipated attack. Sir Bernard treats briefly the war itself, the Red Army, the resurgence of Russian nationalism, wartime relations with Britain and the United States, and the problems of post-war settlement.

Knopf $4.75

BIOGRAPHY AUTOBIOGRAPHY

My Aunt Louisa and Woodrow Wilson, by Margaret Axson Elliott.

Twenty years after his death Woodrow Wilson is very much alive among the biographers. But no one of the many books about him is so intimately revealing as Margaret Axson Elliott’s volume on her brother-in-law in his family and among his in-laws, whether in “Jllyria” (composite name for several southern towns), at Princeton, or in the White House. In the first setting “my Aunt Louisa,” a stern but somehow lovable Puritan, whose forebears, like those of Wilson, were “eminent Presbyterian divines,” is the dominating figure, as the university president and national leader is in the rest of the book. It is not the statesman, however, with whom Mrs. Elliott, younger sister of Wilson’s first wife, is concerned, but with the family man, kindly, humorous, and withal very human. Her delightful book will prove a needed corrective of the all too prevalent impression that Woodrow Wilson was a cold, austere person, the severe, intellectual theorist. And it is particularly timely just now when there is renewed interest in the tragic champion of world democracy.

North Carolina $8

George Fitzhugh, Propagandist of the Old South, by Harvey Wish.

This is a scholarly, sympathetic, study of a Virginia lawyer who defended slavery by attacking free society and Jeffersonian democracy, contending in his books — “Sociology for the South” and “Cannibals All!”—and in numerous fiery articles that the whole world must choose between the chaos of freedom and the blessings of an ordered paternalistic society. “Slavery, white or black, is right and necessary,” was his fundamental maxim. The step from Fitzhugh to Hitler and Mussolini, Mr. Wish points out, is startlingly brief. Fitzhugh was primarily a journalist, and the arguments he presented in a brilliant and often irresponsible manner were drawn from Carlyle and the British Tory reviews. His real significance lies in his provocation of Northern opinion by his verbal extravagances and anti-democratic extremism. More than any other publicist he contributed to “that caricature of the Southern mind which impressed the anti-slavery forces as a product of the slaveholders’ diabolism.” He anticipated Lincoln and Seward by several years in emphasizing the idea of an “irrepressible

conflict” between North and South. After that conflict Fitzhugh lost a good deal of his popularity in the South. Although he continued to write on the racial inferiority of the Negro, he accepted a post in the conqueror’s Freedmen’s Bureau. Adhering to his theory of a paternalistic society, during the Reconstruction era he recognized heroic virtues in the new feudalism of monopoly capitalism, praised the exploits of the “Robber Barons” of industry and finance, and ended his career as a prophet of the New South.

Louisiana $3

Anything Can Happen, by George and Helen Waite Papashvily.

This entertaining book, which is both humorous and pathetic, is the joint work of a Georgian (Stalin’s country, not Oglethorpe’s colony) and his American wife, George Papashvily has furnished the subject matter: his life in America from the time he stepped out of the steerage of a Greek boat about twenty years ago; Helen Waite Papashvily has written it down in a scries of sketches, which are all the more cleverly done in that she has taken great care not to regularize his colorful and highly individual approach to the English language. Cross Saroyan with some of the more cheerful aspects of Steinbeck and you may get a hint of the qualities of this book. The characters, like Saroyan’s, are human in their tenderness and generosity, but decidedly nonconformist in their behavior; and throughout the book runs a strain of sympathy for those who cannot understand or adjust themselves to the demands of ordinary, everyday life. There arc twenty chapters in the small volume; they all illustrate with warmth and a certain vigor George Papashvily’s belief that in America “anything can happen and usually does.”  Harper $2

Prodigal Genius, by John J. O’Neill.

The life of Nikola Tesla is a latter-day fairy tale, and this biography is a success story with a tragic ending. First comes a factual record of how this brilliant yet eccentric young scientist crossed the Atlantic to open the way to the electrification of America. A middle section, equally readable for layman or experts, discusses the more controversial aspects of Tesla’s career. An increasing element of mysticism is introduced toward the end of the book, and the final chapter might be re-garded as complete fantasy were the author not the thoroughly accredited scientific editor of the New York Herald Trib-  Ives Washburn $3.76

Artist in Iowa: A Life of Grant Wood, by Darrell Garwood.

Iowa-born and bred, Grant Wood painted for years and made three trips to France before he gradually realized that his own Cedar Rapids presented the most “wonderful material” for art. American painting was changing in the late twenties and Grant Wood changed with it to find himself famous as the creator of “Woman with Plants,” “American Gothic,” “Stone City,” “Arbor Day,” and other painstak-ing canvasses reflecting the stuff and sub-stance of the section which had produced hin, Until his premature death in 1942, his “strange, mild, and somehow defensc-less” man made and lost considerable money and many friends, remained the storm-center of many an artistic contro-versy, and was hailed the leader of the so-called regional school of American painting.  Norton $8.60

Muifap Martinu, by Milos Safranek.

This biography will be a welcome addition to the library of anyone interested in contemporary music. It is particularly welcome since Martinu’s music is being played with increasing frequency in this country. Mr. Safranek, being himself a Czech, has written with genuine understanding of the work and ideals of his compatriot. He has managed to crowd into the pages of a regrettably short book a great deal of pertinent information about the life and background of the composer as well as adequate analyses of Martinu’s most important works. ’ Knopf $8

Nikolai Gogol, by Vladimir Nabokov.

^{New Directionsaddsanotherfinestudy} to its biographical series in this critical

interpretative analysis of the writings

of Gogol, the nineteenth-century Rus-

sian prose-poet. Using characters drawn mainly from “The Government Inspector,” “The Overcoat,” and “Dead Souls,” Mr. Nabokov has recreated the world of overtones in which Gogol lived—both as a man and a writer. In these overtones, the author believes, lies the key to Gogol’s genius and a clue to an understanding of the man. Misconceptions due to false criticism and inadequate translations are pointed out and evaluated. A brief chronology concludes the volume.

New Directions $1.60

Wife to Mr. Milton, by Robert Graves.

Poor Mary Milton, afflicted with a morose husband and frequent child-bearing, continues to challenge the curious novelist. The few known facts about her, namely, that she was the daughter of royalist Richard Powell who married John Milton at sixteen or seventeen, left him after a few weeks, returned two years later, lived with him until her death eight years afterward on the birth of her fourth child —these and several other facts from contemporary sources are almost all the novelist has to build on. The English poet and fiction writer, Robert Graves, has Mary (Marie to the Cavaliers) tell her own story, elaborated with much historical matter from the Civil War and Commonwealth period. John Milton is the villain of the piece, the cruel husband who uniformly neglects or otherwise makes miserable the tragic heroine. By contrast there is introduced a Cavalier lover whom Marie, obedient to paternal wishes, refuses but always loves. Well, the uncongenial Milton-Powell alliance was certainly bad, and no one will attempt to condone the poet’s lecturing and hectoring of his young wife, but Milton is not as black as Mr. Graves paints him. And assuredly he was not “Oliver Cromwell’s Dr. Goebbels” as the publisher’s blurb asserts. But this is a novel and, as the drunken Trinculo says, “thought is free.”

Creative Age. $2.75

LITERARY STUDIES

Letters of Thomas J. Wise to John Henry Wrenn, by Fannie E. Ratchford. The first one hundred and fourteen

pages of the five hundred and ninety-one that compose Miss Ratchford’s volume tell the story of Thomas Wise’s forgeries more damningly than John Carter and Graham Pollard in their “Enquiry” published in 1984. Miss Ratchford, clinching her proof with evidence from the correspondence which she publishes, weaves a detective story more exciting than the fictitious sort. It has kept one reader at least unconscious of time till three in the morning. Her evidence leaves no doubt of the guilt of Wise and his former clerk, Herbert Gorfin, nor of the distinguished scholar, H. Buxton Forman. Miss Ratchford pronounces Sir Edmund Gosse guilty also. More positive evidence than she produces as to Gosse’s knowledge of the forgeries should be necessary before one should condemn a person of Sir Edmund’s reputation. The letters of Thomas Wise to Wrenn are in the main monotonous reading, though they illustrate the method by which a great library was gathered. There is much bibliographical information scattered throughout their pages, most of it out of date, much of it false, but some of it still of value. This is an important book, for it makes clear the methods used in one of the most daring literary forgeries of all time.  Knopf $7.50

The Percy Letters, edited by Arthur Til-lotson.

This correspondence between Bishop Percy, famous for his collections of old ballads, and Edmund Malone, eighteenth-century scholar and Shakespearean editor, covers the years from 1779 to 1811. Malonc’s letters are far more fruitful than Percy’s, for they abound in news about his work on Shakespeare, members of the Club associated with Dr. Johnson, and contemporary literary matters in general. The present volume, the first of a scries of volumes of the Percy Letters, has been carefully edited by Arthur Til-lotson, with David Nichol Smith and Cleanth Brooks as general editors, and will be of great interest to students of English literature, particularly to eighteenth-century specialists. Most of the letters are printed for the first time.

Louisiana $3.50 The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence. Volumes 11 and 12. Edited by W. S. Lewis and A. Dayle Wallace.

Walpole was already an old man when he met the young, attractive sisters, Mary and Agnes Berry, to whom these volumes of his correspondence are addressed. Agnes could paint and Mary write; their vivacious company at Strawberry Hill charmed Walpole, and he made them his proteges. The letters he sent them on their travels may carry his tone of playful infatuation too far, and his exaggerated anxiety is ever apt to grow tiresome; but one is more than willing to endure a few tedious pages for the rich reward of the many which glow with Walpole’s wonderful shrewdness, wit, and style. Mr. Lewis’s editing retains its high level of excellence: the footnotes arc extraordinarily full, and a painstaking index omits nothing.

Yale $15

Shakespearian Comedy and Other Studies, by George Gordon.

With a preface by Sir Edmund Chambers, a selection of the papers and addresses of George Gordon, late Professor of Poetry at Oxford, has been gathered here under the general title of “Shakespearian Comedy and Other Studies.” The book contains eleven pleasant essays on such topics as “What Is Comedy?,’” “Shakespeare’s Women,” “Othello, or the Tragedy of the Handkerchief,” and “Shakespeare’s English,” which is the most ambitious study in the volume. For the general reader, Mr. Gordon’s discussions will prove entertaining and illuminating talk about the more familiar plays. The style of the writing has a charm of its own, touched with humor and common sense. If there is not much striking originality in the interpretation of the plays, there is a fresh approach and a convincing reasonableness. Altogether the book, except for the chapter on words, adds little to Shakespearian scholarship but is delightful to read for itself and for the refreshing of the reader’s joys in his Shakespeare.  Oxford $2.50

The World of Washington Irving, by Van Wyek Brooks.

Here are twenty chapters more in the literary history of the United States upon which Mr. Brooks has been at work for several years. Cooper, Irving, possessor of “the first high literary talent the country had known”, Poe, who possessed “a literary genius that had had no parallel as yet on the American scene”, Jefferson, N. P. Willis, Bryant, William Dunlap, Audubon, Willian G. Simms, and dozens of others crowd these pages. Chapters on the various sections of the country seem rather too romantic, and there are occasional factual errors, but Mr. Brooks’ enthusiasm is great and this book, like his others, makes first-rate reading.

Button $3.75

Baudelaire: a Criticism, by Joseph D. Bennett.

The poems of this nineteenth-century French poet are critically analyzed in the modern manner, with some pathological probings of the man himself. Baudelaire was a dandified voluptuary, proud, sensual, miserable, seeking pleasure and wisdom in his pilgrimage of purgation through despair and suffering. His most significant poems exploit with fine artistry the dreams and the pains of that composite mental paradise and hell in which he lived. He was a master of irony and paradox whose shorter poems are models of unity, concreteness, clarity, and precision. “He discloses precisely and clearly the nature of a given act or state of mind,” says Mr. Bennett. At times he suggests Poe, to whom confessedly he owed much. This small volume on Baudelaire’s genius is a brilliant and penetrating piece of analysis.

Princeton $2

Imaginary Interviews, by Andre Gide. Translated by Malcolm Cowley.

These dialogues which Gide contributed to a French newspaper in the years after the fall of France, are all ostensibly on literary subjects, but, as Mr. Cowley in the introduction to his expert translation is at pains to point out, Gide has managed in his subtle fashion to say a good deal against collaboration and for resistance. His attitude is made even clearer in his attack on the Collaborationist author Marc Chardonne as well as in his admirable study of Goethe, both of which independent essays are included in the present volume. Apart, however, from their political connotations, Gide’s self-interviews reveal everywhere his fine quality of intellect. His remarks on general art forms and on particular works and authors are more often than not profound.  Knopf $2

Between Heaven and Earth, by Franz Werfel.

In these, essays the noted author of the “The Song of Bernadette” assumes the role of philosopher and sets down his faith about the nature of man and his true happiness. Approaching from the point of view of art, he argues that the insight of poesy throws more light on the human predicament than do the mechanistic assumptions and procedures of science. Faith in the spiritual basis of life is the secret of all creative living. Materialism, communism, fascism, and all forms of excessive devotion to a limited aspect of reality are unable to satisfy man’s deepest longings. A reasonable faith leads man to God, without whom he cannot really live. Without yielding his own position as a Jew, Werfel achieves an inclusive philosophy which validates the essentials of all religion.

Philosophical Library $3

The Bible and the Common Reader, by Mary Ellen Chase.

The common reader certainly needs some instruction in these days of ignorance about the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. That great monument of English prose, on which our writers freely draw, is presented to the “common reader” in a fascinating interpretation of its history and varied literature by Mary Ellen Chase, well-known New England novelist and essayist. As the title indicates, Miss Chase’s book is not intended for the theologian or scholar but for men and

women who would like to read and understand this great English classic.

Macmillan $2.50

FICTION

Stephen Hero, by James Joyce,

This is a literary relic, incomplete in form but interesting and satisfying in itself. It represents pages 519-902 of an early version of “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” written between 1904 and 190G and later discarded by Joyce, The manuscript has been admirably edited by Theodore Spencer. “Stephen Hero” is an important and readable addition to Joyce’s published work.

New Directions $3,50

Road to the Ocean, by Leonid Leonov. Translated by Norbert Guterman.

Around the life and death of Alexei Kurilov, socialist engineer and veteran of the revolution and civil war, is woven a powerful chapter of Russian life in the period of the first five-year plan. A frontier spirit of vigor and freshness is mingled with n sense of political and social frustration. When Kurilov takes charge of a decrepit, badly managed, railroad, which runs across Siberia through the monotonous Cheremshansk district to the Pacific, he almost realizes his dream of reaching the ocean. It is only in the interpolated trips with the author into the future that Kurilov is able to see the end of his plans. Interlocked with each other and the history of the railroad are a variety of people and forces: provincial theatrical companies and the fall of an idolized actor, sketches of the revolution and reconstruction afterwards, Gleb, the evil renegade, and Liza, who says when she reaches maturity, “But when one makes one’s fate oneself, even mistakes are pleasant. Everything, everything can be found in one’s own self. . . . Mid you know, Ilya, a human heart is deeper than any mine in the world.” Fischer $3

Dear Baby, by William Saroyan. The twenty sketches and short stories (Continued from front advertising pages.)

in this collection constitute the most recent chapter in William Saroynn’s ebullient history of the wonderful people of the wonderful world. Here are a professional pug whose great heart is breaking for his Dear Baby, a mouse which steals ten-dollar bills to pay for his human friend’s whiskey, a Greek barber who hates war and refuses to cut the hair of people who believe war has been declared, an Armenian boy who cheats Death through Faith, and many others. Admirers of Saroyan’s facile, plotless stories will find most of these efforts either moving or extremely entertaining: others will think a good many of them rather foolish.

Harcourt, Brace $2

Young’un, by Herbert Best.

This simple little story has the quality of bread and milk. It is concerned primarily with the essentials of living in a time when this country was being settled. Most of us have pioneer ancestors and arc proud of the fact, and this book evokes a nostalgia and a desire to seek again our roots in the past. Aside from its own peculiar charm, “Young’un” should be popular because it diverts the reader’s mind from present-day struggles and difficulties to those of another day. Mr. Best employs a lucid and unencumbered prose which is eminently suited to the unsophisticated time and people about whom he writes.  Macmillan $2.50

The Open City, by Shelley Smith Mydans.

This account of life in the Santo Thomas internment camp at Manila is too much a good reporting of facts about the different kinds of people interned there and their behavior to be a first-rate novel, but perhaps it is all the more interesting now for that very reason. Aside from that, it is a colorless book and the characters convince you, if they do at all, because you feel that they must be disguised portraits of real people. Their validity lies in that assumption and not in the way they are presented.

Doubleday, Doran $2.50

The Journal of Mary Hervey Russell, by Storm Jameson.

The only irritating factor here is something that was done intentionally and that is an integral part of the book: the identification of the author with her character. This is especially plain and especially irritating in some parts, spe-fically those in which Storm Jameson’s books (Cousin Honore, The Fort) are foisted on Hervcy Russell and in which her P. E. N. activities are presented as those of the fictional writer. Many readers will feel that Miss Jameson should either have written an undisguised autobiography or have been content to hide her light completely under Hervcy Russell’s bushel. The book as a whole is a fine and sensitive record of the early war years and those just preceding them, though again and again it weaves much farther back in years and influences, Particularly moving is the account of the last years of her father, the old sea captain, and of the aftermath of his death.

Macmillan $2.50

GENERAL

The Rebirth of Liberal Education, by Fred B. Millett.

In his prophecy of the “Rebirth of Liberal Education” Professor Millett of Weslcyan University, Connecticut, starts, apparently, with the assumption that the lecture method of teaching is discredited, the American graduate school an “incubus,” and the “academic intellectual” in general has been betrayed “by his appointed leaders.” He finds hope for the future of the humanities in a new type of professor and in a survey of a number of by no means mutually congenial educational experiments. Mr. Millett writes with animation and his book is interesting to read and should be provocative to thought in the academic world. That it is in large part special pleading and often illogical, and that it does scant justice to thousands of able and successful teachers in the colleges and universities, will not lessen its power to stimulate discussion.

Harcourt, Brace $2 Mission of the University, by Jose Ortega y Gasset,

In English-speaking countries the author of the popular but not very profound “Revolt of the Masses” has something of a following, undeterred by the plain fact that he invariably writes not uni-versaliter but sub specie Hispanitatis. In this essay, originally presented in lecture form at the University of Madrid in 1930, Ortega y Gasset argues that the fundamental purpose of the university should be not research or professional training, but the instruction of youth in the essentials of Western civilization and its contemporary problems. This admirable but not too startling thesis comes less happily from a country where neither science nor the professions can be said to have taken on the proportions of a menace. Professor H. L. Nostrand, the translator, provides a relatively lengthy, if unenlightening, introduction.

Princeton $2

The Church Looks Forward, by William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury.

This is a collection of twenty-five of the chief sermons and addresses delivered by the late Archbishop of Canterbury during the first eighteen months of his office. They cover a wide range of subjects, but in every one the eyes of the great churchman arc riveted on the religious implications of the economic, social, and political convulsions of our time. All that he says throbs with the passion of the great prophets of all the ages. It is the duty of the church to bring salvation to the souls of men, but it is equally her obligation to work for an economic order and a political system in which a life of freedom, morality, and spirituality is possible. The great need of our day is a reintegration of all aspects of culture on the basis of the spiritual gospel which has been entrusted to the church.

Macmillan $2

Doom and Resurrection, by Joseph L. Hronaidka.

The author, who was formerly a professor of theology in the University of Prague, has been in exile since Hitler invaded his country. He is now n guest professor in Princeton Theological Seminary. The book is a revision of the Sprunt Lectures given at Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, in 1944. It is a popular exposition of the theological ideas of the Russian Dostoyevski, the Czech T. G. Masaryk, and E. Radl, and the Swiss Karl Barth. Differing widely from one another in vital respects, these men agree that the disintegration of contemporary culture has resulted from the lack of an objective standard of absolute values, that is, faith in God. The book provides a helpful orientation in this aspect of recent continental thought.

Madrus House $2

The Biography of a Cathedral, by Robert Gordon Anderson.

The cathedral is Notre Dame de Paris. The biography of the famous church is

almost a history of Christianity in En-rope, with a backward glance at the pagan shrines where Paris now stands and re-gardcd as the remote ancestors of Notre Dame. Her two Christian ancestors were St. Etienne and Old Notre Dame. Al-most everything, sacred and secular, that happened in mediaeval Europe seems in one way or another to have touched Paris and her monumental cathedral. The au-thor of this volume has lovingly and thoroughly studied its architecture, which began Romanesque and ended Gothic, and points out in detail the intricate symbolic network of its infinitely varied decoration. His book is a pageant of history, legend, and art, centering about the storied struc-ture in the Seine which has survived many wars. Longmans $4

REPRINTS AND NEW EDITIONS

A Selective List

FICTION

“The Journal of Madame Giovanni,” by Alexandre Dumas is here presented in English for the first time. The translation, made by Marguerite Eyer Wilbur, is based on the original French edition of 1855-1856, collated with the German edition of 1855 which contained about one hundred additional pages [Liveright $1.98]. One of the earliest and still one of the best examples of detective fiction is Wilkie Collins’ “The Moonstone,” which now appears, with an introduction by Dorothy Sayers, in Everyman’s Library [95 cents]. The excellent list of the World’s Classics includes Anthony Trollope’s “Is He Popenjoy?” [two volumes 95 cents each]. Two volumes in one are to be found in No. 978 in Everyman’s Library: “Some Experiences of an Irish R. M.” and “Further Experiences of an Irish R. M.,” written by E. 0E. Somerville and Martin Ross [95 cents].

LITERATURE & PHILOSOPHY

Plato’s “Timaeus” and “Critias,” as translated by Thomas Taylor, are presented in the Bollingen Series of reprints of great classics. The book is beautifully

bound and printed [Pantheon $2.75] Soren Kierkegaard’s last work “Attack upon ‘Christendom’ ” lias been printed, by the Princeton University Press, in Walter Lowric’s translation, with an introduction by the translator [$2.50], Heinricli Heine’s “Germany: A Winter’s Tale,” first published in 1841, has been published in an English version by Herman Salinger, with an autobiographical introduction by Herman Kesten explaining what he considers its special significance today [L. B. Fischer $2.75].

GENERAL “The Selected Work of Tom Paine”has been edited and “set in the framework of his life” by Howard Fast. Most of Paine’s representative works are included [Duell, Sloan & Pcarce $3.50]. Allan Nevins and Henry Steele Commager’s “Short History of the United States” has been issued in a Modern Library edition with a chapter bringing the history up to the summer of 1944 [95 cents]. Another timely reprinting is that of Edgar Snow’s “Red Star over China,” with a new last chapter covering 1944 [Modern Library 95 cents].

WAR & PEACE

The Untied States and the World Court, by Dentin Frank Fleming.

Here is a warning that once again, after this war, a small group of isolationist or anti-administration senators, acting under the obsolete two-thirds rule required for Senate treaty ratification, may block the new treaties for building the peace even though these have overwhelming popular, executive, nnd congressional endorsement. Professor Fleming relates in detail the shocking story of the tactics of obstruction through reservation, delay, and perfectionism by which a minority of willful senators prevented our participation between the two world wars in the Permanent Court of International Justice.

Doubleday, Doran $2

International Monetary Co-Operation, by George N. Halm.

Professor Halm here presents an account of the Bretton Woods agreement nnd its background, intended both for economists and for the public. It seems scarcely too much to say that the survival of democratic capitalism depends upon the solution of the problem here discussed, and while the non-economist will find this book heavy going, the results should well repay the effort. On an analytical plane the outlook presented by Halm is not very encouraging. Plans like Bretton Woods arc confronted by an intellectually insoluble dilemma. Roughly, the gold standard keeps exchange rates stable, thus encouraging foreign trade and investment; but on the other hand it demands a flexi-bility of money wages and prices which is virtually impossible today. If, however, we avoid these restraints by allowing exchange rates to fluctuate widely, foreign trade and investment could well become so risky as virtually to be prohibited.

There is thus always some conflict between complete national economic independence, and the advancement of foreign trade; between exchange stability and the price policies of various groups. Yet, as

Dr. Halm points out, we do not go into international trade for charity but to raise our own and the world’s level of employment, real wages, and standard of living, That being so, it is worth making some concessions and we need not despair of a workable compromise. The Bretton Woods agreement with its general policy of “some but not too much” seems to him a good beginning. If the unions and other pressure groups can be brought to keep their demands within reason, the problem may well be solved. North Carolina $4

Through Japanese Eyes, by Otto D. Tolischus.

The veteran foreign correspondent of the New York Times who won the Pulitzer prize in 1939 for his reports from Tokyo, has drawn from many Japanese sources to help Americans understand the national aims and political beliefs of our enemy in the Pacific. The Japanese are their own spokesmen on many subjects, such as war aims, another master race, the God-Emperor, plan for world conquest, appeal to color, and the .Japanese warrior. Mr. Tolischus introduces each chapter with pointed comment, and gives the source of all quotations, like the secondary school textbook in which is written “A Japanese is born to march proudlv over the whole world.”

Reynal & Hitchcock $2

America’s Far Eastern Policy, by Thomas Arthur Bisson.

The first section of this book briefly traces the development of America’s traditional Far Eastern policies, but Mr. Bisson, Research Associate of the International Secretariat of the Institute of Pacific Relations, directs his attention especially to relations between ourselves, and China and Japan since 1931. In bis concluding chapter, outlining postwar problems, Mr. Bisson urges destruction of the Japanese imperial system and fundamental agrarian and industrial reforms which would lead to an expansion of the Japanese home market. A selection of important documents dealing with relations from 1937 through 1943 is appended.

Macmillan $3

The Economic Development of French Indo-China, by Charles Robequain.

M. Robequain advocates diversification of colonial production, the development of industry, and greater integration in the economy of the Far East, in order that French Indo-China may more adequately meet its pressing problems of over-population nnd poverty. The translation of M. Robequain’s work, issued under the auspices of the Institute of Pacific Relations, makes available a wealth of valuable, detailed information concerning a key economic nnd strntegic region which served as the base for Japan’s recent expansion into the Southwest Pacific and Southeast Asia. Economic developments from 1939 to 1943 are related in a brief supplement by Katrine R. C. Greene and J. R. Andrus.  Oxford $4

The Argentine Republic, by Ysabel F. Rnnie.

This is the best and most informative, book yet published on modern Argentina, from the overthrow of Rosas and the establishment of the constitutional Republic in 1853 down to the return of reaction and dictatorship two years ago. Mrs. Rennie penetrates behind the familiar story of mushrooming population, wealth and culture, to analyze brilliantly the complicated faults deep within the republican structure, among them economic colonialism championed by the landed oligarchy, consequent stunted industrialism and unbalanced rural development, wide mass illiteracy and poverty, bitter provincial hatred for the Buenos Aires bourgeoisie, and, especially, the persistence of the traditionalist, gauchesque Argentina of Rosas and the criollos, anti-liberal, anti-capitalist, anti-intellectual. Argentina’s tragic position today is due less to the existence of these problems than to the democratic Radical Party’s unforgivable failure, through in-eptness, dishonesty, apathy, and cowardice, to attempt their solution along liberal lines. Militarists and nationalists took

over only after republican Argentina sickened of acute democratic anemia; this book is indispensable to an understanding of its demise.  Macmillan $4

A Miniature History of the War, by R. C. K. Ensor.

Mr. Ensor, Professor of Political Theory and Institutions at Oxford University and author of “England, 1870-1914,” presents a rapid, lucid account of the development of the war, analyzing both errors and triumphs. In seven sections and only 145 pages, he compresses the military events from September, 1939, to August, 1944, into a remarkably clear story. However, his perspective may be questioned in such statements as “The tale of Pacific successes, welcome in itself could only be and was purchased by a lavish employment of men and material— in particular, of aircraft, ships, and landing craft. For political reasons this sacrifice had to be made, since to a large fraction of the American public the war against Japan seemed more important than the war against Germany. But militarily it was a misfortune, and undoubtedly delayed the defeat of Hitler.” In the chronological table of events at the back is this note for June 6, 1944, “British and French troops land on the coast of France.”  Oxford $1.50

Wars I Have Seen, by Gertrude Stein.

The fact that parts of this book appeared in Collier’s magazine (although with a little added punctuation) should be sufficient proof that it is one of Miss Stein’s simplest, least repetitious, and therefore most easily readable works. But one feels that it is either an incomplete book or else a completely unsatisfactory one. It does not reveal more of life in wartime and defeated France than that Miss Stein suffered some minor inconveniences which apparently annoyed her a great deal. And the earlier wars that she saw did not disturb her even that much.  Random $2.60

Politics and Morals. By Benedetto Croce.

The essays in this volume do not have any inner pattern of coherence other than that they relate to some phase of political theory. They would seem to have been gathered together from random sources. However, they do serve the purpose of providing a general philosophic statement of Croce’s liberalism, his refutation of authoritarian types of philosophies and religions, as well as of governments. In several of the essays one finds an illuminating statement of Croce’s antagonism to the Catholic church, for to him it is a principal agent of authoritarian ideals. None of the essays relate specifically to the present day political problems.

Philosophical Library $8

Inocencia. By Alfredo d’Escragnolle Taunay. Translated by Henriqueta Chamberlain.

Although “Inocencia” was published in 1878 this is the first translation into English of one of the Masterpieces of Brazilian literature. It was written in a spirit of criticism against the traditional sequestration of women and the male tyranny over women. The author used the medium of a tragic love story to carry his point. However, “Inocencia” has more in it than tragic love and social criticism, for the setting of hinterland Brazil is pictured with affectionate detail. In addition to the tragic lovers, the book is peopled with humorous characters who add to the color and human interest. Macmillan $2.50

Prisoners’ Quest, by D. II. C. Read.

This scries of realistic studies of the validity of the Christian faith is an expansion of addresses and discussions with allied prisoners in a camp in Germany. The author is a chaplain, who was himself one of the prisoners. The serious and high quality of the lectures is a credit both to the author and to the men whose interest in religion inspired them.

Macmillan $1.50

The Adventures of the Young Soldier in Search of the Better World, by C. K. M. Joad.

Although the tone and method of Alice in Wonderland do not quite come off in this satire that symbolizes man’s hopes and fears about a better civilization than ours, Mr. Joad skilfully gives emphasis to the conflicting attitudes that come into play over tlie search for a sane postwar world. Most drawers of blueprints, the author believes, cither claim too much for their new world, or they claim to know more than they can really know. The Philosopher, who ends the dialogue, prophecies but little and represents a kind of optimistic pessimism about the world-to-come. Keen insight marks this book, and the results of insight arc presented in language anyone can understand and enjoy.  Arco $2

The Best from Yank, the Army Weekly. Selected by the editors.

An anthology of war reports, fiction and humor, poems, letters, cartoons and photographs selected from Yank gives civilians a taste of war as the GI experiences it. The life described runs from the summer of 1942, when Yank started publication, to the fall of 1944. Excepting a few outstanding names, most of the contributors, all enlisted men, were unknown in the writing field before, the war. The cartoons and photographs, unfortunate in reproduction, are probably more familiar to civilians than the other departments. The most representative section of the army as a whole is the Mail Call where everybody has a chance to express an opinion, but the best writing is in the honest, clear reporting. Dutton $3.50

An Apology for the Arts, by W. Macneile Dixon.

What is to become of the “humanities” after the war? This little volume by the. distinguished British scholar and lecturer defends the aesthetic values which this disturbed world is neglecting for the material achievements of modern science. The collection of recent essays, articles, and lectures seeks to show that poetry, painting, and music have always contributed to civilization quite as much as the physical sciences. Science without the arts is simply a machine without purpose, or direction, efficiency without a philosophy of life. The aesthetic ideal is consistent with realistic thinking and quite necessary as an antidote to stark materialism. The little book is a noble, defense of the arts in a world where force

has been pitted against man’s finer stinets.  Longmans, Green $2

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: a Memoric Edited by Donald Porter Geddce.

The merit of a book does not lie in its size or in its price. The enduring value of this small volume, edited and printed in a week, lies in the fact that, as nearly as print can, it catches the feeling of the time when the world learned that Presi-dent Roosevelt was dead, and provides for its readers an unprecedented anthology of the works and days of a great man.

Pocket Books 25

HISTORY

The French Revolution, by J. M. Thompson. Ever since the smokescreen of Burke’s invectives and Carlyle’s melodramatics settled down upon the French Revolution English historians of that great event have labored under an apparently permanent national handicap of bias and misapprehension. With surprise and pleasure, therefore, one discovers in this fine scholarly work of an Oxford don the most objectivc and the most comprehensive one-volume account in English of the crowded years between the convocation of the Esrates-General and the fall of Robespierre, Professor Thompson’s obviously broad and sympathetic understanding of France and the French people enables him to treat all parties, even the Jacobin Republicans, with even-handed justice. He is keenly aware how largely Europe down to our own times lias continued the ideologics and conflicts of the revolutionary era, and thus his book is an excellent manual in that very contemporary subject, the mechanics of crisis politics. Richness of content and interpretative skill rank the work above the standard American histories of similar scope; it surpasses them also in being refreshingly well written.  Oxford $5

Belgium. Edited by Jan-Albert GorisThis co-operative work is designed to fill the need in English for a comprehensive survey in one volume of Belgium’s W. E. WOODWARD’S BEST AND MOST IMPORTANT BIOGRAPHY

W. K. Woodward follows his best selling “The Way Our People Lived” with a remarkable biography of the first American champion of the common man. The book places him against the background of his times and offers a fascinating picture of the ways of life in those days.

Illustrated $.5.50

TOM PAINE

AMERICA’S GODFATHER

by W. E. WOODWARD

Author of ‘The Way Our People Lived,” “A New American History,” and many other Best Setters.

WINNER OF THE AVERY HOPWOOD MAJOR FICTION AWARD

Winner of the Avery Hopwood Major Fiction Award — written with fresh insight, profound conviction. A vivid characterization —this is a nove’ of cumulative power and deep understanding.

$2.7/5

A SWEEP OF DUSK

by WILLIAM KEHOE

AN IMPASSIONED NOVEL OF UNUSUAL LITERARY MERIT

A passionate woman, fanatical in her lintri’il of fascism, finds sex her most dynamic weapon in lighting it. On this theme Robert Xcnniann, employing a technique new in current fiction, has written a brilliant and powerful novel -important because of its message, exciting because of the story he tells.

$.’.511

THE INQUEST

by ROBERT NEUMANN

A noted New York eye specialist sets straight many popular misconceptions about the eyes. Written for laymen in a lively, non-technical style. Illustrated in full color and black-and-white.

$2.75

YOUR EYES HAVE TOLD ME

by LOUIS H. SCHWARTZ, M.D.

William S a r o y a n : “One of the most beautiful and exciting stories I have ever read—I know a great and good hook when I see one.” Louis Ad-amic: “Surmeliati has got the stuff.” $2.75

I ASK YOU) LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

by LEON Z. SURMELIAN

Introduction by WIKiam Saroyan

Richard l.ockridge, the author of the famous “Mr. and Mrs. North” mystery stories teams up with G. II. Ksta-brook, Professor of Psychology to create an entirely new type of adventure-spy fiction. $2.50

DEATH in the MIND

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE and

G. H. ESTABROOKS

At All Bookstores E. iP. DUTTON & co. New York 10, N. Y.

historical and cultural development, as well as the prescnt-day economic activities. It is informative, and while heavily weighted on the purely cultural side, it fulfills its purpose admirably. One of the best sections is that dealing with the Belgian Congo, and its economic value.

California $5

Modern Korea, by Andrew J. Grajdanzev.

With penetrating research and careful analysis Dr. Grajdanzev, Research Associate of the Institute of Pacific Relations, has accumulated a volume of factual information on Korea, despite the heavy cloak of Japanese censorship which has covered events in that strategic area since 1910. The result is a detailed and documented handbook on the history, population, geography, agriculture, mining, industry, government, and social institutions of Korea. Dr. Grajdanzev found that the people of that colony have suffered ruthless exploitation under a system of imperialism that has kept them in poverty and medieval bondage, and he strongly supports the establishment of an independent Korea.  John Day $4

Sociology of the Renaissance, by Alfred von Martin.

This essay casts no new light on the interpretation of the Renaissance. It is basically a restatement of the older approach to this period represented by Burckhardt. The author regards the Renaissance as a complete and isolated historical epoch and arbitrarily divides it into early, high, and late. No notice is given to the works of the twentieth century which have given a more basic and substantial view of the Renaissance. All the examples used are based on the Italian phase only.  Oxford $2.50

England in the Eighteen-Eighties: Toward a Social Basis for Freedom, by Helen Merrell Lynd.

The eighteen-eighties marked a chasm in English history between an older concept of laissez faire and a new awareness of the responsibility of government to all classes. It was an era of economic disorder which first brought the forces of so-

cial change into a new prominence. Helen Lynd’s study of England is based upon these assumptions. She supports them with a mass of material taken from newspapers, memoirs, and parliamentary reports. The result is an eminently readable and definitive analysis of the bases of social change in England as they emerged during this period of crisis. Oxford $4.50

When the French Were Here, A Narrative of the Yorktown Campaign, by Stephen Bonsai.

The author of this volume began his career as a war correspondent in 1885. In 1922 he escorted M. Clemenceau on his tour of the United States and both became interested in exploring the route of Rochambean’s march from Newport to Yorktown. Their plan to make the pilgrimage together could not be consummated, hut Mr. Bonsai has made the journey in these pages. The narrative is based entirely upon original records and the portrayal of military movements and of personalities who participated in this climactic scene of the American Revolution is fresh and vital.

Doubleday, Daran $3

Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet, by Rembert W. Patrick.

Rescuing the Confederate cabinet from oblivion is a worthy task, and Professor Patrick has handled it worthily. Exhaustive research and balanced judgment have resulted in an enlightening study of the administrative problems of the Davis government, and the reader is likely to follow the author to the conclusion that the trouble with the Confederacy was not the weakness of its political leadership, but the weakness of the will-to-win among the people of the seceded states.

Louisiana $8.75

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Angel in the Forest, by Marguerite Young.

Today, in New Harmony, Indiana, “the past is an intangible . . . as in other parts of these abstract United States—a filling station where there were two Utopias, Mr. Babbitt where there was an angel.” But behind today in New Harmony lies the record of two early and opposed experiments in communal living: “The Rappite, a Scriptural communism, founded by Father George Rapp, German peasant, who believed his people to be future angels—the Owenite, founded by Robert Owen, an English cotton lord, who believed all men to be machines. The end result of Father Rapp’s community, a celibate order, was heaven —and the end result of Robert Owen’s, chronicle also incalculable, was the British labor movement.” The end result of this chronicle is a little tedium (the narrative is occasionally too involute, too finespun) and much enjoyment—both in the dual tale itself and in Miss Young’s Prose, which is subtle, imaginative, and skilled in phrase and cadence.

Reynal & Hitchcock $3

A Texan in England, by J. Frank Dobie.

What this Texas professor of English literature, lecturing in England on American history, told the students and dons of the University of Cambridge about his own country is equalled only by what he learned in his year’s residence about English life and geography. His southwestern drawl, breeziness, general friendliness, and knowledge of English history and literature won all hearts. Mr. Dobie was at home with farmers as well as with academicians. Part of his citation for an honorary M. A. at Cambridge was: “What he doesn’t know about long-horned cattle (de bobus longicornibus) isn’t worth knowing.” He remarks of his English hosts and their fellow countrymen generally: “There’s nothing else on earth so good as kind hearts and free minds.” His book of impressions and well-grounded opinions abounds in entertaining anecdotes and acute comments. He was impressed, for instance, by the well modulated voices of English women as contrasted with the often strident tones of American women which, he thinks, may come from efforts to be heard at constant parties and conventions. This salty, pungent narrative, with its frequent fondles of lyrical prose, is a refreshing interpretation of England and America to each other. It is one of the best books ever written by an American on England.

Little, Brown $2.60

Straw in the Sun, by Charlie May Simon.

When the author went to live in a log house in the Ozarks she swiftly became a part of the life in those mountains. Two children came, uninvited, to work for her so they might have shoes, enough to cat, and some learning. Though poor in worldly possessions, Mrs. Simon, with pioneer self-reliance and resilience of spirit, made the best of what was at hand, aided by neighborly assistance in times of misfortune. She has written with unassuming charm of her experiences with birds and beasts and humankind. This book might be called her bread and butter letter of appreciation.  Dutton $2.75

The Lambs, by Katharine Anthony.

One would think it impossible to say anything new about those perennial favorites, Charles and Mary Lamb, but books about them continue to appear with more or less regularity. This latest “biographical study” pays much attention to the psychopathic, or manic-depressive, condition of Mary as shown in her recurring attacks of madness. The emotional life of brother and sister is dwelt upon at greater length and in more detail than in most recent accounts, though several years ago Professor E. C. Ross of the University of Oklahoma, in his “The Ordeal of Bridget Elia,” thoroughly analyzed Mary’s affliction. Miss Anthony feelingly relates the sister’s energy at. sewing and writing and entertaining visitors and the brother’s frequent lapses into inebriety. The devotion of these two, their large circle of friends, and their literary evenings at home when there was high talk and good fellowship, are engagingly portrayed. The book is adorned with many pictures of the Lambs and their circle of famous literary folk. If Charles Lamb wrote for antiquity (he loved old books as well as old china), it has turned out that he is written about and steadily read by posterity.

Knopf $3.50

Victoria through the Looking-Glass. The Life of Lewis Carroll, by Florence Becker Lennon.

This is an adult annlysis of the creator of “Alice in Wonderland,” with that tale regarded as the high tide of release in an otherwise unpleasantly inhibited and restricted life. Mrs. Lennon does not pretend to know all about the Reverend Charles L. Dodgson and his counterpart through the looking-glass, Lewis Carroll, but she has collected and dealt intelligently and sympathetically with an astonishing amount of heterogeneous material. The language of the psychologist occasionally obtrudes a little too harshly, but the book as a whole is an excellent study.

Simon & Schuster $3.60

Good-Bye, Proud World, by Margaret Emerson Bailey.

Fiction as biography or biography as fiction leaves the reader often confused as to which is which. Margaret Bailey’s autobiography might be read as a novel and it would be found more entertaining than nine-tenths of the run-of-the-mill stories. It is offered as straight autobiography. “Meg” is somewhat dramatically presented—what fun to be the heroine of one’s own romance!—and her story is as true to the facts, no doubt, as most autobiographies are to life. Providence, Bryn Mawr, West Point, and Chicago supply the major part of the background that is thickly set with vivid figures from life: father, mother, teachers, friends, and “ancestral voices.” The interest of the narrative holds with remarkable continuity, and the roundness of the people suggests characters created rather than people observed. The frankness of the writing is at times almost cruelly revealing, though sometimes almost passionately sympathetic and moved with feeling. Miss Bailey is a poet and “Good-Bye, Proud World” is written with a poet’s sensitiveness. Scribner’s $3

Maiden Voyage, by Denton Welch.

“After I had run away from school, no one knew what to do with me,” runs the opening sentence of this objective piece of autobiography, written by a young man at an age when writing tends to be intensely subjective. The self-portrait which appears is not an entirely agreeable one, but it is both candid and amusing. This is not a book for the unbending puritan, but nlmost anyone else with a sense of humor and a little leisure will relish young Mr. Welch’s account of his runaway trip to Salisbury and Exeter, his voyage out to Shanghai to visit his father,’ and his escapades there. There is a laudatory foreword by Miss Edith Sitwell, to whom the book is dedicated.

L. B. Fischer $2.75

South America Called Them, by Victor Wolfgang von Hagen.

South America was a Dark Continent before it became the Green one. This is the absorbing story of four great naturalists who answered the challenge of its vast unknown: La Condamine, with the first scientific expedition permitted to enter colonial Spanish America, seeking to measure a degree at the equator; Humboldt, who traversed the Orinoco wilderness, discovered the long-bruited water link between Orinoco and Amazon, and then pushed on to the wonders of Colombia and Ecuador; Darwin, of the Beagle, tracking the half-glimpsed evolutionary theorem from Brazil to the Galapagos; and, finally, the indomitable Richard Spruce, who through long, painful years in the Amazonian selva laid the foundations of South American botany. Readable as a novel, more interesting than most, the book painlessly provides much useful information, geographical, biological, and ethnological. Less happy are its divagations into history, which will, like the Latin quotations, elevate the eyebrows of even non-Macaulavan schoolboys.  Knopf $8.75

San Martin: Knight of the Andes, by Ricardo Rojas. Translated by Herschel Brickell and Carlos Videla.

Power-hungry generals have long bedevilled Latin-American political life, which makes it less surprising that San Martin, who renounced empire over most of southern South America, should be failed the Saint of the Sword by his reverent hagiographer and fellow-Argentine, Rojas. Here for the first time Americans can make the acquaintance of one of the most attractive and, in the United States, least known heroes of the Western Hemisphere’s conflicts with European despotism. Champion of freedom and constitutionalism, this Cincinnatus of the River Plate drove Spanish tyranny from much of the New World by his incredible campaigns: the crossing of the mighty Andes, the liberation of Chile, the amphibious assault on Spain’s Peruvian citadel. Yet at the pinnacle of military success came the great renunciation of Guayaquil, the surrender to Bolivar of the power and the glory. Amid the author’s encircling Wagnerian gloom it is not always easy to discern the real man, but even comparisons with Lohengrin and Parsifal do not obscure San Martin’s humanity, genius, and devotion to the revolutionary ideal.

Doubleday, Doran $3.50

LITERARY STUDIES

No Voice Is Wholly Lost. Writers and Thinkers in War and Peace. By Harry Slochower.

This analysis of the trends in international culture during the past quarter of a century develops the theme that our heresies and restiveness may be an educational journey toward the “greatest individual expression within an ordered commonality.” Beginning with Nietzsche as the “overture to the cacophonous symphony of the war era,” the book deals with the variety of attempts to come to terms with discontinuity and solitude as exemplified by such writers as Henry Adams, Santayana, Dewey, Huxley, Hemingway, Kafka, Mann, Steinbeck. Mr. Slochower’s ability as a critic has nlready been established in his “Three Ways of Modern Man” and “Thomas Mann’s Joseph Story, an Interpretation.”

Creative Age $3.75

The Aesthetic Adventure, by William Gaunt.

In concluding bis entertaining, gossipy history of the Bohemian movement in the art and literature of France and England, Mr. Gaunt says, “it had some of the character of a witty play, a comedy per-

formed by highly accomplished actors who wrote (very brilliantly) their own words . . .”. This drama begins with the meeting of Baudelaire and Gautier and ends with the exhibitions of Roger Fry, In the meanwhile such actors as Swinburne, Whistler, Wilde, George Moore, Manet, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Cezanne struggle against society, both Philistines and idealists, for more liberty. “There was in total result a grain of beauty, impossible to weigh and estimate against the insignificant expenditure of lives,” Harcourt, Brace $3

Hundred Towers, a Czechoslovak Anthology of Creative Writing. Edited by F.C. Weiskopf.

The title of the volume is taken from the steeples of Prague which an unnamed Czech poet in this collection calls “O Gothic Hands of My Beloved.” This anthology of poetry, fiction, and essays attempts to present the outstanding currents of thought and creative method during the last fifty years. Only three of the twenty-four writers are familiar to American readers generally: Karl Capek, author of “R. U. R.,” Jaroslav Hasek, author of “The Good Soldier Schweik,” and F. X. Salda, former Professor of Western European Literature at the University of Prague; but this introduction to many others will show that more translations will be rewarding. It is edited and furnished with an introduction by F. C. Weiskopt, poet and novelist, whose last two books, “Dawns Break” and “Firing Squad,” have been published in this country.  L. B. Fischer $3.50

New Writing and Daylight. Autumn, 1944. Edited by John Lehmann.

This issue of recent writings in poetry and prose contains more work by European authors than the previous four have been able to. In the discussion of war poetry which ends the volume, Mr. Lehmann pays tribute to Alun Lewis and Sidney Keyes, both of whom have lost their lives in this war, and to the development of Edith Sitwell. The opening poem is