Word: authorative
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...they accept these homely observations, readers will soon find themselves becoming as comfortably at home with the ages as Author Van Loon himself. He cosily assures them that the temples of ancient Greece were "as simple as a garage, and a one-car garage at that, for every temple was the home of one single Deity." Up through the centuries the author of The Story of Mankind mounts again, telling in words of one syllable whence the Etruscans presumably inherited the arch, what the Romans did with it, why the churches of the Middle Ages were made so tall...
This week Dr. Rhine publishes New Frontiers of the Mind,* which is the October choice of the Book-of-the-Month Club. For the most part it covers the story as narrated in his previous writings, with some addition of philosophical and anecdotal material. The author tells, for example, how he spurred a subject to guess every card right in the pack of 25 by betting him $100 on each card. He also confesses that...
Laid in the thumb-shaped spur of rocky land that juts down from the county of Mayo along the west coast of Ireland, and with this period as background, Famine just fails of being the epic of struggle and suffering its author unquestionably designed it to be. But for readers strong-stomached enough to endure an unrelenting account of human misery. Famine is a powerful and at times wildly moving novel...
...volume of a biography on Andrew Jackson (Andrew Jackson: The Border Captain), Marquis James has made a name for himself as one of the few conscientious U. S. historians whose books give the historical novelists a run for their money. Last week, in his concluding volume on Andrew Jackson, Author James offers a frankly-hinted explanation: ''Many good writers," he avers, "who now and again dash showily into the biographical lists are careless, lazy and shallow about their research, whereas most of the honest and competent researchists can't write for sour apples...
Except for its duller opening chapters, covering Jackson's brief retirement at the age of 55, Andrew Jackson: Portrait of a President matches the calibre of the first volume. Once Andrew Jackson is launched on the campaign that made him seventh U. S. President, Author James is pleasantly at home with a career which translated into politics "Old Hickory's" roaring virtues as an Indian and British fighter, frontier gallant, gambler, duelist. Apart from its fresh portraiture of Jackson, the book offers a well-lighted view of the background events which provided the dress rehearsal for the Civil...