ISSUE: Summer 1944
New Books from
CHAPEL HILL
fadmira, by C. S. Lewis. In this sequel to “Out of the Silent flinct,” Ransom the philologist is called a the planet Venus, which he finds to be nother Garden of Eden and in which he a pitted against his old enemy, Dr. Wes-
10 in the drama of the temptation of a K* Eve. Their lengthy pleas for her ml exhibit much Screwtapish psychology md give tbe book its moral reason for tiug. The novel is an extraordinarily tilertaining Christian tract, filled with Venture and description, both of a high imaginative order. No one seems to have noted that a great part of the freshness
11 Mr. Lewis’s fantasy derives from bis knowledge and appreciation of the
medieval cosmos. Like the Scholastics’ icres, his too have each an angelic in-iigence; and he is at his best in de-the cosmic dance. Macmillan $%
hoss’m, by E. M. Almedingen. The most stimulating qualities about Frossia, a girl who tries to bridge the ;ip between the old Russia and tbe new n 1917, are her intense joy in being alive ind her love for her country. When Frossia’s family refuses to meet tbe knging conditions and chooses to die nstead, she returns to struggle in a kotic Petrograd to become a part of an solving system. Her path is made too mooth by fortunate circumstances for much inner development, but in the attempt to work out her destiny she associates with a motley and interesting poup of people. Harcourt, Brace $2,50
Ik Rainbow, by Wanda Wasilewska. The president of Moscow’s Union of Polish Patriots tells the story of a Uk-iiinian village from the time the Ger-Mns take it over until the Red army hives them out. The heroism of tbe Russians and the brutality of the Germans arc enlarged beyond credulity, but “we is revealed a spirit of courage, a termination to resist the invaders, and jn irreconcilable hate which are power-“’ and real. Simon cy Schuster $2.50
Mronkle of Daivn, by Ramon J. Sender. Translated by Willard R. Trask. Here is a short novel of classic con-tars and compelling density of meaning.
THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE
By RuM J, Bartlctt. The story of n powerful peace movement at the close of the first World War, of the organization that backed Wilson’s plans, of how these plans were wrecked, nnd who did the wrecking. $3.00
THE THEORY OF ECONOMIC PROGRESS
By C. E. Ayres. A pioneer work in the development of n new appronch to economics, more radical than the current Ricnrdo in reverse Marxian socialism. Bound to arouse controversy and to originate fundamental changes in economic thinking. $3.00
JUSTICE AND WORLD SOCIETY
Ry Luurencc Stapleton. How can Nazism be criticized and condemned if no universally valid idea of justice exists? How did this concept disappear from the social sciences? Why is its revival cssentinl to the maintenance and further development of civilization? $2.00
PRACTICAL FARMING FOR THE SOUTH
Ry Benjamin F, Bullock
$2.50
MACHIAVELLI’S THE PRINCE
Edited by Hardin Craig $3.50
A SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF CULTURE
By Bronislaw Malinowski
$3.00
THE DISSIDENCE OF DISSENT: THE MONTHLY REPOSITORY, 18064838
By F. E. Mineka $4.00
THE SCOTCH-IRISH IN COLONIAL PENNSYLVANIA
By W. F. Dunaway
$2.50
HAWTHORNE,
THE ARTIST
By Lcland B. Schubert $3.50
Hi
lost It is the story of a few months out of a Spanish childhood, during which time the hero experiences first love and learns of tragic destiny. The hoy Pepe’s life is fraught with petty but at the time insurmountable troubles, all of which are seen in memory through an idyllic film of beauty; and the innocent love borne his young sweetheart, Valentina, still is intoxicating. Not the least important element of Sender’s artistry is the significant dramatic texture he gives the story by making the narrator a soldier who is dying in a concentration camp. Pepe is aware that since his cause has met with defeat and all hope is gone, the recording of his memories is his only means of affirming his faith in life and remaining “a man of substance.”
Doubleday, Doran $21)0
Home Is the Hunter, by Gontran de Poncins.
This almost static story of the French chateau country before tlie first World War is a colorful bit of portraiture with a few dramatic touches. An old domestic, who had served an aristocratic family for forty years, returns after a forced retirement of ten years .and reflects upon the changes wrought hy later occupants and the decadence of the place and its surroundings. The book is a prose epic of strangeness and beauty evolved by the author from the mind of Jean Menadieu, the “hunter” who came home and went away again, a prolonged record of intimate introspection done in leisurely, rhythmical, speech.
Reynal $ Hitchcock $21)0
The Bay of Silence, by Eduardo Mallea. Translated by Stuart Edgar Grummon.
Here is a novel of ideas describing with sincerity and intensity the intellectual climate of modern Buenos Aires. Martin Tregua, addressing his story to a woman who seems to represent the soul of his country and whom he has loved at a distance for many years, reveals himself as a young man of good will who has tried, along with his several companions, to rouse his countrymen to a sense of their responsibilities and of the flaws
Lvii
of their civilization. As the book standi in its abbreviated English translation the narrational methods and the handling of several of the characters are unsatlsfj. ing, while the various themes fail to attain convincing unity. But there art many pages nevertheless of spirit and distinction; they increase our understanding of Argentina at a time when such a> understanding is important. Knopf $%,(/)
Canape-Vert, by Philippe Thoby-Marcc-lin and Pierre Marcelin. Translated br Edward Larocque Tinker.
There is a bare thread of namtivt here, not enough, certainly, to keep ali « any interest in the characters, were it not for the wealth of Haitian folklore and folk customs that fill the pages. The authors are clever in manipulating their puppets in order to show how completely the Haitian simple folk are dominated Ij Vodun gods and beliefs. They show as well how these loas and mysteres are used for their own material advantage h shrewd and unscrupulous Vodun priests. The life revealed is simple in detail and action, complex in motive and fcelirij and tropical as well as primitive in even word and deed. Farrar $ Rinehart $M
A Treasury of Russian Literature, edited by Bernard Guilbert Guerney.
Beginning with Friar Nestor in tlx eleventh century, this collection offers ii its 1000 pages of readable print a wealtl of Slavic literature with particular emphasis on the nineteenth century Ret-aissance. It does not include the Soviet period but among its contents are tit complete novels by Turgcncv and Dos-toievski—”Fathers’and Sons” and “Note from Underground”; three plays li Chekhov, Gorki, and Gogol—”The Thru Sisters,” “The Lowest Depths,” tf “The Inspector General”; nnd selection! of short stories from Pushkin and poem from Lermontov. Vanguard
A Treasury of Great Russian Skt’ Stories;’ Pushkin to Gorky, by Avrah Yarmolinsky.
Dr. Yarmolinsky has been chief of t> Slavonic Division of tbe New York H lie Library for tlie past twenty-five years and is well qualified to select stories from the field of Russian Literature. He adds to the value of this anthology by a competent introductory essay and brief biographical essays about each author. The selections are made mostly from the great figures, starting with Pushkin, including Gogol, Turgcnev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, an undue proportion of Chekhov, and ending with Gorky. Macmillan $j
Traditional Chinese Tales, translated by Chi-Chen Wang.
Readers who desire to acquaint themselves with traditional Chinese fiction will find twenty excellent samples in this collection. Tales written in classical Chinese and those written in the vernacular are represented here, tales whose origins were remote centuries ago, but which still possess vitality and charm. An elusive fragrance, gentle humor, mysterious comings and goings, loyalty and betrayal, with more than a clash of villainy, compound to ensure regret that the twenty short stories are soon read. They are not soon exhausted. Columbia $2.75
Contemporary Chinese Stories, translated by Chi-Chen Wang.
The modern Chinese writer finds little romance to lend smoothness to his pen. Instead it is pushed by the force of hunger, danger, fear, and pain, becoming an hectic instrument for political agitation. In this anthology, covering the years from 1918 to 1937, Mr. Wang presents a few of the stories which have been written by men and women who are keenly alive to trends of thought and action in their country. Realistic and tough, these stories reveal the temper of a strong, brave people. Columbia $2.75
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
The Road to Salem, by Adelaide L. Fries.
The road was the pioneering journey of the Moravians from Pennsylvania to Salem, North Carolina, and the settlement there in the middle of the eighteenth century. The story is told in tbe autobiography of one of that sect, Anna Kath-arina Antes (who survived four husbands),
A distinguished reappraisal of
Our Heritage
GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE AMERICAN UNION
BY CONGRESSMAN
SOL BLOOM
Chairman, House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Based upon years of loving research, this volume re-examines the founding of the American Republic in the light of our present problems and perplexities, drawing from the records of that critical efa practical lessons of immense importance to this one. The result is a sweeping away of many common misrepresentations and false traditions concerning both George Washington and the making of the Constitution—a rediscovery and affirmation of the priceless inheritance which is every American’s.
A brief biography of Congressman Bloom, by Ira E. Bennett, for 25 years editor of the Washington Post, deals vividly with the progress of one who chose to pull his own weight from boyhood—and who has since made countless contributions to the American Way.
$5.00
32 illustrations. Index. 662 pages G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
2 West 45th Street New York 19
Icciii and is translated from the original German, supplemented from other contemporary documents, by Miss Fries, who is archivist of the Southern Province of the Moravian Church. The religious devotion, the hardships, the thrift, philanthropy, educational activities, and the patriotism of these sturdy colonists are vividly recounted. The Bible was their guide in things temporal as well as spiritual; each settlement was a little religious community. But the members were intensely loyal to the new government. “The Road to Salem” is a valuable contribution to early American religious and secular life and deserves wide general reading. North Carolina $Jf
William Penn, by William Wistar Comfort.
This “Tercentary Estimate” of Penn approaches the subject from the Quaker point of view, but it presents a well-reasoned and balanced judgment. The problem of reconciling the stipulations of a royal charter, which required that all laws conform to those of England, with Quaker ideology and the practical interests of a colonial proprietor, was enough to tax the ingenuity and the conscience of any man. Penn was, through force of circumstances, a compromiser, but he did not compromise himself, and he stands with Roger Williams and Thomas Jefferson as one of the great founders of religious liberty in America. Pennsylvania $8
The Innocents at Cedro, by R. L. Duffus.
The “innocents” were three students who lived for a year with the noted economist Thorstein Veblen in his cottage at Cedro near Stanford University where he was a professor. One of thenij the well-known journalist and novelist R. L. Duffus, calls his book “a memoir of Thorstein Veblen and some others.” It is a sketchy study of the eccentric “master” and his agrarian household, a little California idyl of long ago. At times Mr. Duffus is almost lyrical, enveloped in an “imaginative mist” of memory. The coming of spring around Cedro, for instance, though not so violent as in his native Vermont where “it batters you
with ecstasy,” was sudden and overpowering: “You just relaxed. You let go. You didn’t give a damn. You wanted it to stay now, the present moment forever. You half believed it would.” This is delightful pastoral reminiscence touched with whimsical humor. The only irritating thing about the book is the author’s passion for distracting footnote comment, a Sternclikc weakness which he frankly acknowledges. Macmillan $8
I Can Go Home Again, by Arthur G. Powell.
This book of reminiscences by Judge Powell of Atlanta is an anecdotal saga of southwest Georgia, the author’s native heath. Focal centers of folksy interest are courthouse and church; the Negro, the lawyer, the preacher are characters around whom the author weaves his many realistic stories, including his own happy tale of love. Most of them bear the authentic insignia of a folklore, entertaining to this generation and invaluable to the future sociologist. It is a racy record of local people and customs, a trngi-comic regional drama told with unfailing good sense and humor by a gifted son who lived there for thirty-odd years and who “can go home again” when he gets tired of the big city. But the little old Blakely of his youth and its Piney Woods people are of course better stuff for song and story than the later. Judge Powell has produced a vigorous, faithful, and salty human document from the rich and varied contribution of Southern life to American social history. North Carolina $
Silly Girl, by Angna Enters.
The reader who shudders at the title and shuns the book will miss a charming autobiography written and illustrated by an artist of keen intelligence and vivid personality. It is hard to decide which is the more entertaining section: “Silly Girl,” which deals with her childhood and young girlhood, exotic in the, telling and by comparison with the ordinary American childhood; or “The Magic Cord,” which recounts in an unusual way the usual mixture of poverty, determination, and luck on which artistic success is built
Icciv The third section, “Paintings at an Exhibition,” compresses a little too tightly Miss Enters’ years of success as a mime, both in this country and abroad. The illustrations, botli in color and in black and white, are not the least attractive part of the book. Houghton Min $8.50
]hr Diary, by Jean Malaquais; translated from the French by Peter Grant.
An artist and writer portrays the life of a sensitive man—himself—as a private in the French army during the “phony war,” In his daily journal lie characterizes the men around him, their work, conversations, and amusements, sometimes cruelly, sometimes with humor. But the most penetrating^ passages concern his reflections on man, nature, and art in the war-world and reveal the change that occurs within him during the last months before the fall of France.
Doubleday, Doran #.75
The Eagle and the Dove, bv V. Sackville-West
In the lives of the two mystics, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese of Lisieux, Miss Sackville-West has seen great challenge to her powers as a mature biographer. With stylistic brilliance she evokes background, and characterizes each woman with n wealth of human detail. Her method proves more successful with the short-lived and only recently canonized finder of the Little Way than with the complex Spanish reformer of the Carmelites, Where her double biography fails most seriously is in its rigidly objective treatment of religious experience.
Doubleday, Doran $2M
WAR k PEACE
The Idea of Nationalism, by Hans Kohn.
Nationalism, one of the basic social forces of our age, has been constantly discussed and recently deplored but little understood, perhaps because of the dearth of comprehensive and penetrating analytical material on the subject. Here is a scholarly book which, because it goes a long way toward supplying such material, is indispensable to those concerned with the problem. After more than twenty years of research and writing on the subject, Hans Kohn has produced a momi-
Ideas in America
By Howard Mumford Jones
A distinguished man of letters expresses clearly and persuasively the doctrine that a mature interpretation of our own intellectual and cultural history ought to be one of the important concerns of American Scholarship. $3.00
Sleuthing in the Stacks
By Rudolph Altrocchi
Curious tales and strange information gathered by a scholar in his years of literary research and now related with a gay humorous touch.
$8.60
A Century of Latin-American Thought
By W. Rex Crawford
The social and political problems of Latin America as interpreted by their leading moralists, critics, publicists, political scientists, and sociologists,
$3.50
Shakespeare and the Actors
By Arthur C. Spraoue
From prompt books, reviews, and other sources information has been collected on Shakespearean stage business from 1(560 to 1905, including business used by many famous actors. $5,00
Moira: Fate, Good, and Evil in Greek Thought
By William C. Greene
An important group of ideas prominent in Greek literature and philosophy and of continuing interest and influence in modern thought is for the first time discussed in a single volume. $5.00
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge 38 Massachusetts mental study covering the historical genesis of the idea of nationalism from the time of the Hebrews and Greeks to the eve of the French Revolution. We await with eager anticipation the promised companion volume which will bring the study up to date. Macmillan $7.50
The Constitution and World Organization, by Edward S. Corwin.
It will be unfortunate if the small size of Professor Corwin’s “The Constitution and World Organization” gives the false impression that it is a little book. It discusses the important principle of “sovereignty” and the practical problem of the entry of the United States into an international organization. The argument is clear and succinct. An unusual power of compression has made it possible for the author to give the effect of authoritative completeness in fifty-seven pages of print. His conclusion is that “When Total War is the price of Total Sovereignty, the price is too high. What, indeed, is ‘Sovereignty,’ as we see it daily at work, except the freedom of decision and action with which the Constitution and laws endow our governing agencies; and always the important question is: How can this freedom of decision and action be exercised by such agencies so as to serve best the real freedom of the American people . . .” Princeton $1
World Wars and Revolutions, by Walter Phelps Hall.
Although the subtitle of his book is “The Course of Europe Since 1900,” Mr. Hall, Dodge Professor of History at Princeton, merely summarizes events to 1914. The book not only is a survey of European history from that date to 1943; it also contains sections on the Near and Far East. The military and political aspects of the two world wars are discussed in detail. Despite certain inaccuracies and serious omissions, Professor Hall has written a readable account of events in a style interesting to the layman. Adequate interpretative material too often has been omitted, unfortunately not always for the sake of brevity.
Appleton-Century $4
Der Fuehrer, by Konrad Heiden.
In this account of the rise of Hitler to power much new material, heretofore unavailable in this country, has been used by Mr. Heiden, who is probably the greatest authority on the Nazi movement. He has painstakingly traced the life of Hitler and other Nazi leaders, the factors which influenced their actions, the antecedents of the heterogeneous concepts upon which Nazism is based, and the development of the movement from its origin through the bloody purge of 1984 which firmly established Hitler’s power. Not pleasant reading, but often exciting, this book is an invaluable historic document. Houghton Min $8
The Danube Basin and the German Economic Sphere, by Antonin Bch.
The economic backwardness of the countries of the Danube basin, which made the area politically weak and subject to rivalry among the great powers, is here ably described by Mr. Bch, an eminent Czech economist now at Columbia University. The methods employed by Nazi Germany to gain economic dominance and the harmful results of the bilateral relationship for the smaller countries are presented in detail. In his conclusions Mr. Bch explores such proposals for the future of the area as industrial development and increase in production and home markets in the region itself, greater integration in the European economy, abandoning of autarky and the fostering of multi-lateral world trade, and parallel regional political pacts within the framework of international order.
Columbia $3.60
Russia and the United States, by Pitirim A. Sorokin.
Stimulated by the common war effort and the apparent need for post-war cooperation between Russia and the United States, a number of Russian emigres have recently attempted to interpret modern Russia to Americans. As a former law and sociology professor at St. Petersburg and a member of the Kercnsky cabinet, Professor Sorokin, now Chairman of the Department of Sociology at Harvard, is
rell nil equipped for this task. Despite some oversimplification, his hook is a riluable contribution because he stresses lie cultural, institutional, and ethical itaildtlties of the two countries which loia the basis for their post-war co-oper-itjon in building the peace. Especially raluable is his account of the progressive period in Russia, 1861-1917, so little understood in this country, and his em-(Jiasis on the necessity for common values is a prerequisite to a peaceful world.
Dutton $3
Spain, by Salvador de Madariaga. The Civil Warv appears, in this enlarged revision of a well-known study of Spain’s constitutional, economic, and cultural problems, as “a strictly Spanish trent,” the conflict between Leftist and Rightist extremes at the expense of a moderate Center with which the author seeks to align himself. Convinced that the Republicans themselves were primarily responsible for the Republic’s failure and tie War, Madariaga argues that they could have avoided the greatest disaster in modern Spanish history by submitting to the Fascist revolt and permitting the traditional follies of Spanish dictatorship to pave the way for further democratic advance. This new third of the book, essentially a bitter anti-Republican po-ic, lacks the balance and penetration of the older portion, and sounds like a curiously confused and often factually inaccurate hangover from the heyday of non-intervention and appeasement.
Creative Age $%
hradox hie, by Carol Bachc.
The isle of paradox is Japan, where Carol Bachc spent fourteen years as ‘gent of the American Military Intelligence Division. Her keen perception of Ike Japanese character, way of life, and pervasive antagonism to foreigners is cleverly recorded in this dramatic volume, ner varied experiences and impressions, ‘elated with lively penetration and numor, make a fascinating book. The Japanese, she thinks, have changed little
in their suspicious attitude toward us since the days of the first American minister there over eighty years ago. Despite their professed regard for Ambassador Grew, their polite speeches to American visitors, and the response of the common people to the missionaries, the nation as a whole has remained inwardly hostile, and the treacherous attack on Pearl Harbor had been long prepared for. “Paradox Isle” is a revealing and colorful piece of interpretation of a people who, though much indebted to Western culture, remain ethically and politically Oriental, still inscrutable to the Occidental mind.
Knopf $2.50
Peoples of Southeast Asia, by Bruno Lasker.
Under the auspices of the Institute of Pacific Relations, Mr. Lasker has made a thorough and able study of the various aspects of the civilizations of Southeast Asia in terms of their native heritage, the impact of contact with the West, and the conditions essential to future progress after liberation of the region from Japanese domination. Tins book is unusual in that it considers the area as a whole, and only incidentally discusses the character of any one country. Emphasis is upon the complex sociological and economic factors, rather than the romantic folklore and customs which have popularized the region. Mr. Lasker proposes that regional political, economic, and cultural advisory councils be established after this war to aid in the transition to self-government and in the solution of such problems as poverty, poor health, inadequate sanitation and education, and economic nnd social discrimination. Knopf $3
Romanticism and the Modern Ego, by Jacques Barzun.
Mr. Barzun emphatically disbelieves “that any period has offered men the kind of peace and certainty that the modern ego is clamoring for”; and his conviction is that men of today, instead of desiring classical serenity, would do well to return
(Continued in back advertising pages.) (Continued from front advertising pages.)
to the romanticists’ view of life, which, being founded on the dual nwareness that the world must be remade and “thnt man is both creative and limited, a doer and a sufferer, infinite in spirit and finite in action,” leads to constructive activity inside the aTts and out. His argument is well-organized, but perhaps because of its brevity seems to produce its array of names and facts often by sleight-of-hand. There is a brilliant chapter defending Rousseau against the charge of fascism, Barzun holding that Rousseau’s thinking went beyond that of Hobbes and Ma-chiavelli and showed “the possibility of reconciling government with liberty.” Another chapter discusses the four phases of romanticism—Realism, Impressionism, Symbolism, and Naturalism; and at the end there is an amusing collection of quotations which reflect the unstable modern usage of the word “romantic.”
Little, Brown $2.75
HISTORY
The Way Our People Lived, an Intimate American History, by W. E. Woodward.
Ordinarily, he who reads history must visualize it. In this volume, however, Mr. Woodward has done the visualizing for the reader. He creates characters who, by means of conversations and letter-writing, and with timely assistance from the author, describe the scenes through which they pass. This is an attractive method of presenting social history and it is skillfully done, but such a combination of fact and fiction often leaves the reader uncertain as to where the borderline between the two is supposed to lie. Nevertheless, Mr. Woodward has done his work with reasonable care, and has explored many of the unfrequented by-paths of the American scene.
Button $3.96
Album of American History, Colonial Period. James Truslow Adams, Editor in Chief.
Under the same editorship as the “Dictionary of American History” and
the “Atlas of American History,” this ji the first volume of a companion work which is to cover American history pic. torially. The illustrations are carefully selected, attractively arranged, and accompanied by just enough text to identify and explain them. There is no better way to obtain a vivid impression of American colonial life than by a careful study of this volume. The eighteenth-century setting is fairly familiar to most readers, but the seventeenth is difficult to visualize because its remains are few. This “Album” helps to clarify the scene in man? details, such as the absence of log cabins and the presence of forks among the early English settlers. Scribner’s
The Plain People of the Confederacy^ Bell Irvin Wiley.
The Old South portrayed in this book will be something of a shock to Southerners who feed on memories of the planter-aristocracy. Here we have the Soutb’i bumble folk—black and white—who dwell in cabins and eked out a meagre Hvi hood. More than half of those who wj the grey were tillers of the soil; but autbor’s sampling of 107 muster representing seven states, 28 re] and 9,000 privates, revealed more 100 occupational groups ranging ii apothecaries to wheelwrights, and eluding such astonishing classifications gamblers, rogues, and speculators. The bulk of the Confederacy’s fighting forcf came from non-slavcholding families, erf the author depicts them vividly as til) display both the weaknesses and the virtues of the yeoman society from whid they sprang. This book is strongly recommended to those who wish to get â– true picture of the Confederacy.
Louisiana $1M
Pills, Petticoats and Plows, by Tho| D. Clark.
“Pills, Petticoats and Plows” i «j history of the Southern country from the fall of the ConfederacfJ 1915. In the ante-bellum South were distributed by cotton factors^
lacx merchants in the towns, rural stores being relatively unimportant. After four years of war, with all stocks completely exhausted, hundreds of stores mushroomed into being. The North flooded the South with cheap goods, and young men whose fathers had been prosperous planters, or had belonged to the professions, were now behind the counters, doling out the pills, petticoats, and plows. The country store not only supplied these necessities, but became the South’s public forum and political stamping ground as well. Professor Clark used scores of records of the storekeepers themselves, and his readable narrative is a revealing economic history of the South in its leanest years.
Bobbs-Merrill $3.50
American Constitutional Development, by Carl Brent Swisher.
Without minimizing the importance of constitutional beginning, Professor Swisher maintains that “The period of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft rivals or exceeds in importance that of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren,” and that “The New Deal and the coming of the second World War shook our institutions to their very foundations.” He, therefore, devotes half of this close-knit and scholarly volume to the years of the Twentieth Century. He believes that the negative and the positive decisions of Congress, as well as the administrative acts of the executive, must be considered along with the judgments of the judiciary in determining the manner in which the Constitution has been applied in the actual operation of our government. These points of view lend freshness and vitality to Professor Swisher’s interpretation of constitutional development. Houghton Mifflin $6
A Short History of France, by Sir John A. It. Marriott.
Short histories can be good histories, but when they adopt as their guide Freeman’s dubious dictum about past politics, they tend to be bad ones. Sir John makes it worse hy emphasizing, under the guise of a comparison of English and French development, relations with Britain as the
latum
central theme of the story of France. Tbe result is more space to Bouvines than to feudalism, to Napoleon than to the Third Republic, to the Hundred Years Wir than to the period from Versailles b Vichy. But the pace never drags and the book is readable enough to whet tit beginner’s appetite for better balanced and more solid fare. Oxford $Mj
The Netherlands, edited by Bartholoraei Landheer.
The purpose of the United Na Series is to offer in readable form as mud concise information as possible about u many of the various aspects of each r* tion as can be achieved. This volume 01 tbe Netherlands is characterized by cartful scholarship and dignity of feeling. It is written by a number of scholars, a&d, as is usual in such instances, presents u uneven quality of workmanship. In tlu case, however, there is little that is pool, and the variety, of styles only adds to the interest. The chapters on the Dutcl imperial history, particularly those ol Aiury J. Vandenbosch on the Far Eut nnd Jan 0, M. Brock, on the economit significance of the Netherlands India, have a special value in light of the presul war situation. Illustrations, charts, talk and small maps and a selected bibliography give solidarity to a work designed for tin general reading public. California $
Rebellion in the Iiacklands (Os Serlon), by Euclidcs da Cunha.
Samuel Putnam, in an excellent tram-lation, has made Brazil’s greatest classi available for the first time in Englisl With superb reporting, Cunha descriks the physical environment of Brazil’s it tcrior, its varied assortment of primita peoples, nnd, within this setting, ft amazing history of the campaign of ti tinction waged against Antonio Const! hciro’s ragged band of fanatic follow” by the army in 189(5-97. This book mi only shocked Brazilians, it became I landmark in Brazil’s literature because! turned that country’s literary efforts |* ward its own problems and therewB away from exclusive attention to ft European traditions. Chitqih
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J flew Zealand, by Walter Nash
No person is better fitted to write of the proud record of New Zealand than Walter Nash, first Minister to the United States and brilliant statesman of New Zealand’s present Labour Administration. Since New Zealand is outstanding for its recent economic and social progress, an authoritative account of its history and accomplishments in these fields, as well as its achievements in the war, is most welcome. The book contains in its concluding section Mr. Nash’s own views on the peace, and, in an introduction by Eric Estorick, a brief biography of its author.
Duell, Sloan 6} Pearce $8.60
The Making of-Modern Chifia, by Owen and Eleanor Lattimore.
The years in which the Luttimores have studied the Far East at first hand, including Owen Lattimore’s service to Chiang Kai-shek as political adviser, give their writing a tone of scholarship and authority. Their book does not attempt to contribute to the basic materials now available on China. Unfortunately, however, it treats the important periods and events of both ancient and modern Chinese history so sketchily as to jeopardize the book’s function of adding effectively to the layman’s real understanding of that country. It is-perhaps impossible to present an adequate historical account of the rich civilization of China in less than two hundred printed pages. Norton $2.50
POETRY & LITERARY STUDIES
The Fortunes of Falstaff, by John Dover Wilson.
Some years ago Dover Wilson evoked much discussion through his “What Happens in Hamlet.” In “The Fortunes of Falstuff,” he has undertaken with as much daring to reinterpret the two parts of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” and reconstruct the characters of Falstaff and Prince Hal. There is not much that is new in the theories that Mr. Wilson advances, but many of them are not known to most readers, and their combination into one man’s rereading of the plays is â„¢w and full of challenge. Mr. Wilson
“Now, if we were only staying at
THE ROOSEVELT
When you stop at The Roosevelt you don’r risk getting marooned like this. For you’ll be within walking range of Manhattan’s Midrown activities. Direct passageway from Grand Central Terminal to hotel lobby. A reservation at The Roosevelt liquidates a lot of bother. Rooms with bath from $4.50.
THE Roosevelt
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Iwanii acknowledges his greatest debts to H. N. Hudson and John Baily. J. W. Spargo twenty years ago compared the plays to morality plays: Falstaff, the Vice; Hal, Mankind; and the Chief Justice, Virtue. Riot, Youth, and Justice are the Wilson counterparts. Mr. Wilson accepts the arguments for an earlier Henry IV play, believes that Will Kemp was the first actor of the Falstaff role, and contends that Shakespeare planned the First and Second Parts as two parts of a double play to be acted together or on successive days. For the general reader or for the Shakespearean scholar, “The Fortunes of Falstaff” is good reading. It is written with imagination and a sense of drama. A reader may disagree wholly with the not-too-tightly-spun tissue of argument and yet engage in the following of the threads with anticipatory delight. Old Sir John has been the “cause” of one more entertainment. It may be suggested that it is very doubtful if most of Mr. Wilson’s “points” will find wide acceptance among scholars, without casting any reflection upon the unquestioned erudition of the author or on the value and charm of tbe book as literary criticism.
Macmillan
The Literary Fallacy, by Bernard DeVoto.
Increasing numbers of readers and critics sense the frailties of much of tbe literature which flourished during our renascence in the twenties and are emboldened to cast moral judgment. But few would choose so narrow and unprofitable a mode of attack as this of DeVoto, who accuses such writers as Lewis, Hemingway, and Dos Passos of having criminally misrepresented America. He is completely unwilling to admit that there has been any disintegration of the social structure which might help to explain the attitude of these writers, and he further accuses all who believe that a culture can be viewed through its literature of being guilty of “tbe literary fallacy.” He seems in the main to be making an ill-thought-out plea for an awareness of history and the unliterary aspects of culture on the part of artists and critics alike; but since he writes best destructively, a large part
of his book is given over to a renewal of bis condemnation of Van Wyck Brooks.
Little, Brown
The Shield of Achilles, by Horace Gregory.
Despite the essayist’s ingenious prefatory efforts to make Achilles’ shield the symbolic nexus for this collection of literary critiques, the reader will be inclined to welcome them rather as an anthology of random but always intelligent and stimulating evaluations of literary figures ranging from Johnson through Wordsworth and Poe to Yeats, Woolf, and Paul Elmer More.
Harcourt, Brace
Lytton Strachey, by Max Beerbohm.
Not a biography, but the Rede Lecture for 1943 at Cambridge University by Max Beerbohm on his friend Lytton Strachey, this essay has value as a piece of literary criticism, aside from its interest as a sympathetic portrait of the biographer. Perhaps the most striking utterance by “the incomparable Max,” apropos of Stracbey’s fine art, is this: “Let us not ignore the virtue of form in literature. It is the goblet for the wine. Be tbe wine never so good, ii not our enjoyment of it diminished if tbe hospitable vintner pours it forth to be lapped by ns from the ground with our tongues ?” This is apt comment on some modern literature. Knopf #1
FAoges and Other Poems, by St. Job Perse. With an English translation bj Louise Vorese and an introduction kj Archibald MacLeish.
St. John Perse, who is Alexis St. Lepi Lcgcr, was born and spent his youth in tbe Antilles. These poems, written I number of years ago and now, in a some French-English edition, first published in America, celebrate both the poet* youth and Mankind’s. Perse has an inescapable integrity which makes for greatness; tropical voluptuousness is refined and made magically pure and inebriating in his poetic alembic. Traces of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Claudel are net bard to detect; but tbey are bis ri|
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