Not quite a ""cross section of 20th century civilization"" as the blurb tells us, but a high lighting of world news, through the Times correspondents. Washington, Vienna, Czechoslovakia (this is one of the best), Hollywood, Broadway, Wall Street, Great Britain, Japan, the world of sports, N. Y. C. politics and various feature stories. The accounts tend to fuse the personal with occasional headline material, skipping around ad lit. But it makes brisk, engrossing reading, straight journalism, little commentary or interpretation.