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BOOK REVIEWS95 disasters caused by man or by nature. If he did not leave a record of his later thoughts on the war and the massive Nazi crimes committed in it, the author could have said so. In the final analysis it is not the subject of a biography who has the last word but his biographer. John Zeender The Catholic University ofAmerica The Letters of Teilhard de Chardin and Lucile Swan Edited by Thomas M. King, SJ., and Mary Wood Gilbert. Textual editor, Karl Schmitz-Moorman. (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 1993. Pp. xx, 316.«45.00 cloth; S24.95 paper.) When they met in Peking in 1929, Teilhard de Chardin was forty-eight, a paleontologist who had been a Jesuit for thirty years; Lucile Swan was ten years younger, a divorced American artist. Their friendship flourished for a decade in Peking, for another sixteen years across the globe as both moved and traveled. They discussed Teilhard's ideas, the books and essays on evolution that he was writing and circulating to friends in mimeographed editions. Ms. Swan came to share his views and helped in preparing typescripts. More than two hundred of Teilhard's letters to her are included in this edition, the last major collection of his letters to be published. About forty of Ms. Swan's letters are extant, and selections from them have been included along with portions of her journal and notes to herself about Teilhard. Most of Teilhard's letters were written in English and those written wholly or partially in French have been presented in both languages, with Teilhard's lapses in English and eccentric French punctuation faithfully reproduced. The critical apparatus contains a parallel chronology of their lives, a select bibliography, an index of names, and a guide to indexed names. Ten photographs are included. The collection is valuable for several reasons. It further illuminates Teilhard 's personality and affords more glimpses of his reactions to the trajectory of his career, the genesis and reception of his ideas, and the health problems of his last years. Some more detail is added to what we know of the circumstances in which various of his writings were prepared. The most important aspect of diis volume, however, is that it should put to rest once and for all any doubt as to the nature of Teilhard's commitment to his celibate vocation. Ms. Swan many times expressed her desire that their relationship include sexual intimacy, asserting that its omission was inconsistent with his ideas on the relation of matter and spirit. Repeatedly Teilhard denied the possibility of his ever embarking on such intimacy with any woman, explaining to her the organic role of virginity in his continued spiritual and intellectual development and reiterating the views he had set forth in his 1918 essay, "The Eternal Feminine." Indeed, "The Evolution ofChastity," written in 1934, seems 96 BOOK REVIEWS an attempt to deal with the problem presented by his friendship with Ms. Swan. In an epilogue, "Teilhard and the Feminine," Father King rehearses (as he did in pp. 158-174 of his 1988 book, Teilhard de Chardin) the role played both by the idealized view of women and the friendship of specific women in Teilhard's life and thought. This handsome and useful compilation would have been enhanced by the inclusion of an index of topics as well as that of names. Joseph M. McCarthy Suffolk University American Sanctuaries ofSpanish New Mexico. By Marc Treib. (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1993. Pp. xviii, 352. 855.00.) A big, handsome production designed by the author, this volume brings California to New Mexico. Even though Marc Treib earned degrees in architecture and design in the late 1 960's at the University of California, Berkeley, where today he is professor of architecture, and the University of California Press published the study, the subject is not California missions, but, surprisingly , New Mexico missions. It began as a guide book. Treib then perceived the need "for an architectural history that synthesized material from these [i.e., previous] studies and bolstered them with fieldwork and formal analysis" (p. xii). To that end, he achieves a neat balance of words and...

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