Reviewed Elsewhere

Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy: A Life. Jean Bethke Elshtain. New York: Basic Books, 2002. 329 pp. $28.00. "The reader comes away with a real respect for Addams as a literary and intellectual figure, but also as a woman whose life and career define humanitarianism in the twentieth century." Katherine G. Aiken. American Historical Review 107.5 (Dec. 2002): 1567-68. Asquith Family "Clifford has turned a formidably complex stretch of political and human history into a highly readable and enlightening book." Anne Chisholm. TLS, Jan. 24, 2003: 7-8. Basson, Wouter Authors Chandre Gould (a researcher for South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission) and Marlene Burger, a journalist, have tried to unravel the story of Wouter Basson, the first head of a biological and chemical warfare programme to go on trial in the world. The book is not an easy read: [End Page 345] it is a tangled web of events, people and companies which stretches over many continents; however, it is too good a story not to read. Secrets and Lies is a laudable effort insofar as anybody has been able to paint a picture of the apartheid state's chemical and biological warfare programme. Estelle Ellis. Cape Argus, Oct. 4, 2002: 12. Baudelaire, Charles No one could ever write the work Edgar Allen Poe hypothesized, entitled "My Heart Laid Bare." Mon Cœur mis à nu was Baudelaire's attempted response to the challenge. Described by Claude Pichois in his Introduction as "un des textes les plus explosifs des lettres française," this daring autobiographical project, which never reached completion, launches notoriously scathing attacks on certain individuals (most notably George Sand), as well as on entire sections of society (including women and Jews). What distinguishes this new edition of the work from previous ones is that the reader can now inspect black-and-white facsimiles of the original fragments for evidence of the scorching anticipated by Poe. . . . As a result, this manuscript has much to recommend it not only to the Baudelairean specialist (the manuscript being consultable only on microfilm at the BNF) but also to the very thick-skinned admirer. Maria Scott. French Studies 57.1 (Jan. 2003): 99-100. Baum, L. Frank "For some odd reason, Baum has never been the subject of a full-length biography. Katherine M. Rodgers, a scholar and a lifelong Oz devotee, has written one, and a charming figure Baum turns out to be. He appears to have been one of very few writers who really were exactly as one would want them to be: sweet-natured, kind, a loving husband and father. He was also reasonable and liberal, with a sardonic sense of humor that prevented his books from ever becoming cloying. His only real fault was ineptitude with money, but he was wise enough to marry a woman whose gifts complemented his." Brooke Allen. NYTBR, Nov. 17, 2002: 13. Beaufort, Francis Beaufort was a nineteenth-century English naval hero, explorer, and scientist."Gale Force 10 is a meticulously researched, beautifully written biography of [End Page 346] a great man which will be of interest to historians and general readers alike." James Kelly. TLS, Jan. 3, 2003: 32. Beerbohm, Max "In Hall, a professor of English at City University, Beerbohm has been put in the hands of someone who clearly has had a long and intimate familiarity with his man and who has done a thorough job here in presenting all the relevant information. But Hall has also seemingly picked up aspects of his subject's temperament and thinking, chiefly his aversion to larger ideas, his desire to keep biography personal and particular, and his if-it-feels-good-to-me-it-is-good creed as a critic, and the result is a centerless, challenge-free, and all too genial account." Stanford Schwartz. NYRB, Feb. 13, 2003: 8-10. Beethoven, Ludvig von "Lewis Lockwood is a leading musical scholar of the postwar generation, and the leading American authority on Beethoven. He has published influential articles on the composer, some collected previously in Beethoven: Studies in the Creative Process...