HERBERT HOOVER

With a fresh point of view, this overcomes the handicap of being the third juvenile biography of HH this year and goes on to establish Hoover as a man of unusual character and diverse interests who happened, near the end of a long and notable career, to become President of the United States. By developing the background and the significant particulars of each aspect of that career, Mr. Steinberg projects an individual worth reading about for himself and his achievements; he produces a book which will supplement in this regard the good but somewhat more limited and conventional accounts by Peare and Terzian (limited in depth, conventional because of some contrived conversations and incidents). However, only thirty-four pages (of 245) treat the Presidency, with emphasis on the economic crisis, which is seen as the inevitable result of forces antedating and outside Hoover's power to control. This is valid as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough to encompass the multitudinous problems and personalities of a troubled administration. The result is a carefully lim portrait of an interesting individual, which tells more about mining in Australia and the Boxer Rebellion in China than it does about the American scene, but tells it all to good effect.