The Colonel

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This elegant, learned biography richly delineates the imperialistic secretary of war under Taft and FDR, governor-general under Coolidge and secretary of state under Hoover. Photos. (Apr.)

Library Journal

Stimson has few equals in American history. As Secretary of War on two occasions (1911-13, 1940-45) and Secretary of State (1929-33), Stimson's record is matched only by Timothy Pickering. He was at the seat of events from the ``rise to world power'' to the enshrinement of the Republic triumphant in 1945. He was intimate, insofar as such a reserved individual could be, with everyone who was anyone, from Theodore Roosevelt to Harry S. Truman. Yet despite his achievements and his voluminous papers, this work is only the second attempt at a personal assessment since Elting E. Morison's ``official'' biography ( Turmoil and Tradition, LJ 9/15/60). But if this new biography fills in some essential gaps and places Stimson within his historical context, it is also prolix, disapprobationary, and smacks more of journalistic muckraking than historical scholarship.-- J.K. Sweeney, South Da kota State Univ., Brookings

Booknews

Presenting the lectures delivered at the Institute, this volume attempts to unify a broad variety of microscopic collisional processes that are often treated in isolation, or apparently that have very little to do with one another. Divided into three sections, the contributions address scattering processes with photons and electrons as projectiles, non-adiabatic scattering processes and adiabatic processes in molecular scattering. A biography of the warrior and diplomat who was the founding father of the American foreign-policy establishment and who, for almost 50 years, was near the center of American power, alternately wielding it himself or in the confidence of those who did. Originally published by Knopf in 1990. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)