CLARA BARTON: Battlefield Nurse

There's no critical need for another biography of Clara Barton but this brisk account has certain advantages, some of them negative--few contrived conversations, little emoting. Similar in structure and interpretation (and reading level) to the Pace, it handles the Civil War with much more dispatch, letting a few key incidents illustrate the nature of Nurse Barton's contribution. Equally emphasized are her later efforts to gain American approval of the International Red Cross treaty and her insistence that the Red Cross serve also in peacetime. Altogether it's a judicious personalization, succinct and spirited, and more suitable for the older slow reader than some of its pulpy predecessors.