Books in Brief

The Uncommon Man: The Individual in the Organization, by Crawford H. Greene-walt (McGraw-Hill, $4-00). The American business executive, as a type, has been the object of jibe and vilification for as long as most of us can remember. He has proved pretty easy pickings, in part because he so seldom talks back. Mr. Greene-walt, the president of du Pont, talks back in this compilation of essays-in the main persuasively, and always with the poise and learning that qualifies for top-drawer social polemics. In addition, he speaks with the authority of first-hand knowledge. The familiar stereotypes-whether one of Sinclair’s beasts of prey, or the automaton draped in gray flannel-are as representative of the business community, Mr. Greene-walt is saying, as the long-haired professor is of the academy. Still, there is a real danger that the great economic units of modern society will effectively discriminate against individuality and class, in favor of conformity and mediocrity. Therefore, our main social goal, and the one which the smart corporation will keep its eye on, should be to provide every individual with the opportunity to be uncommon. In developing this undoubtedly sound argument, Mr. Greenewalt leans a little heavily on platitudes. But the second half of his book contains some trenchant analysis. I was particularly taken with an attack on progressive taxation that eschewed the easy “lack of incentive” argument and bore down on the “immorality” of denying a man what he has earned. l. b. bozell

T. E. Lawrence, by Jean Beraud Villars (Duell, $5.50). In his own lifetime, thanks to hagiographers like Robert Graves, T. E. Lawrence was a Boy Scout’s idol. Then after he died, the sharks closed in, and a biography like Richard Aldington’s coldly tried to expose the worst: that Lawrence was illegitimate, homosexual, vindictive, proud, bedeviled, and fanatically hungry for fame. Actually, as this account by an unprurient Frenchman makes clear, he was only an exceptionally passionate and deeply harried human being. When he led the Arabian revolt against the Turks during World War I, intricate historical factors were involved. But as his own account in Seven Pillars of Wisdom strictly insists, his own “strongest motive throughout had been a personal one, not mentioned here.” It now appears that, like Jay Gatsby, Lawrence was above all a man in love, and that in a sense his whole Arabian campaign was a literal fight to reach Damascus, where his beloved was waiting. Anyone to whom this possibility seems too slight, or unmanly, should leave Lawrence’s private life alone. For like the life of Shakespeare’s Antony, it confronts us with the fact that a great leader can do the most epic things-build empires, plot revolutions, sack cities-for the least international, the most intimately needful reason in the world. R. PHELPS

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The Uncommon Man: The Individual in the Organization, by Crawford H. Greene-walt (McGraw-Hill, $4-00). The American business executive, as a type, has been the object of jibe and vilification for as long as most of us can remember. He has proved pretty easy pickings, in part because he so seldom talks back. Mr. Greene-walt, the president of du Pont, talks back in this compilation of essays-in the main persuasively, and always with the poise and learning that qualifies for top-drawer social polemics. In addition, he speaks with the authority of first-hand knowledge. The familiar stereotypes-whether one of Sinclair’s beasts of prey, or the automaton draped in gray flannel-are as representative of the business community, Mr. Greene-walt is saying, as the long-haired professor is of the academy. Still, there is a real danger that the great economic units of modern society will effectively discriminate against individuality and class, in favor of conformity and mediocrity. Therefore, our main social goal, and the one which the smart corporation will keep its eye on, should be to provide every individual with the opportunity to be uncommon. In developing this undoubtedly sound argument, Mr. Greenewalt leans a little heavily on platitudes. But the second half of his book contains some trenchant analysis. I was particularly taken with an attack on progressive taxation that eschewed the easy “lack of incentive” argument and bore down on the “immorality” of denying a man what he has earned. l. b. bozell

T. E. Lawrence, by Jean Beraud Villars (Duell, $5.50). In his own lifetime, thanks to hagiographers like Robert Graves, T. E. Lawrence was a Boy Scout’s idol. Then after he died, the sharks closed in, and a biography like Richard Aldington’s coldly tried to expose the worst: that Lawrence was illegitimate, homosexual, vindictive, proud, bedeviled, and fanatically hungry for fame. Actually, as this account by an unprurient Frenchman makes clear, he was only an exceptionally passionate and deeply harried human being. When he led the Arabian revolt against the Turks during World War I, intricate historical factors were involved. But as his own account in Seven Pillars of Wisdom strictly insists, his own “strongest motive throughout had been a personal one, not mentioned here.” It now appears that, like Jay Gatsby, Lawrence was above all a man in love, and that in a sense his whole Arabian campaign was a literal fight to reach Damascus, where his beloved was waiting. Anyone to whom this possibility seems too slight, or unmanly, should leave Lawrence’s private life alone. For like the life of Shakespeare’s Antony, it confronts us with the fact that a great leader can do the most epic things-build empires, plot revolutions, sack cities-for the least international, the most intimately needful reason in the world. R. PHELPS