De Valera. By Sean O'Faolain. (Penguin Books. 6d.)
THIS short book is certainly the best biography of De Valera available. It is written from the point of view of a professed Republican, but without any sacrifice of the right of indepen- dent judgement and criticism. Its particular merit is that it places De Valera clearly against the background of Irish political history ; and if when he comes to the economics of modern Irish life Mr. O'Faolain sometimes loses his leader in an undergrowth of statistics and economic theories, many readers, knowing something already of De Valera's consti- tutional changes, will be glad of an introduction such as this to the less familiar subject of the social organisation which he and his predecessors have created. It is useful to have such a guide available in popular form, though on aesthetic grounds one might wish for so good a book a less strictly utilitarian setting ; and it regrettably seems as if saboteurs have been at work on Mr. O'Faolain's orthography, playing havoc with his punctuation and laying malevolent hands on his spelling.
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