DANGER SPOT OF EUROPE

Although Mr. Brodrick, an Englishman, has written widely on such subjects as North Africa, Burma, Prehistoric painting and early man, this latest book of his on the Germany of today is not a work of importance. In the introduction, he states his views: the world has a slave society and a free one; West Germany is our prime line of defense in Europe and we must build up protective ground forces; what happens in the future will depend on United States policy and how the French act and react. This is a good start but Mr. Brodrick goes on to implement his theses disappointingly by a series of hodge-podge, jammed together thumb-nail sketches of various personal experiences and any aspect of Germany that randomly enters his mind. These sketches do have titles, but they are almost specially undivided from each other. Mr. Brodrick comes out with the occasional observation like the vacillating character of the Saar Basin or the advisability of Franco-German agreement in spite of consequential weakening of Britain, but from his rambling and ofter incoherent generalizations it seems he is far more interested in Moselle wines, German jokes, and that bar in Metz.