Shorter notices
Which Way? Thirteen Dialogues on Choices Facing Britain edited by Michael Ivens and Clive Bradley (Michael Joseph 50s). These dialogues on rather broad economic and social questions are almost conversation pieces among politicians, journalists and others, who are paired against each other with opportunities for reply. The book is based on the fundamental misconception that the basic cleavage between right and left is on 'economic liberalism'. Would that it were! But it is some consolation that Norman Macrae and his 'left wing' opponent Jane Morton agree that we should 'return to first principles and separate income support from housing pro- vision.'
Washington Douglas Southall Freeman. abridged by Richard Harwell (Eyre and Spottiswoode 100s). The seven-volume life of George Washington by Dr Freeman was published between 1949 and 1958, with the last section appearing posthumously. It is securely established as a work of massive research and judicious scholarship, but on such a scale as to deter all but the most avid appetites for eighteenth century American history. This one-volume abridgement is still a monumental piece of biography, running to nearly 800 pages and with numerous illustrations and maps; but it is manageable by the ordinary reader, who will find in it not only the life of the first American pre- sident but also a spacious perspective of the American scene in his times,
Anatomy of Error: The Secret History of the Vietnam War Henry Brandon (Deutsch 30s). Mr Brandon is the acknowledged doyen of Washington's foreign press corps: a shining example of the wisdom of leaving a foreign correspondent to mature en poste. He drops names: but unlike most name-droppers he really does know intimately the celebrities to whom the names belong. Much of this book has already appeared as a series of articles in The Sunday Times; and Mr Brandon's con- clusions are hardly novel, although some of his assessments of personalities are surpris- ing. As regards Vietnam Mr Brandon. influenced perhaps by the personal antipathy which most of the Washington press corps always felt towards President Johnson, lays most of the blame for the American predica- ment on him. But for British readers the chief interest in this book is to be found in the hilarious blow-by-blow account of Mr Wilson's attempt to knuckle in on the action during the Kosygin visit to London in February 1967.
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