FAMOUS AMERICAN POLITICAL FAMILES

Starting with the Adams family and ending with the Kennedy clan, this reads as swift, entertaining information. Mr. Lawson's World War I, World War II and Korean War histories have suppled younger readers with solid information and are written with a skillful eye for the telling detail. Collective biography allows him even more scope for storytelling. Anecdote follows on anecdote as he moves through the eras that saw the Harrisons, Roosevelts, Tafts, LaFollettes and Longs. Mr. Lawson is particularly good at making the distinctions between the men who bore the same name and in introducing the political issues that faced the members of each family --where they agreed and where they approached matters from a viewpoint of their own day and age. This is an excellent introduction to American political history and it is good biography, a combination difficult to achieve in the short form.