Whose Country?

First Things, Last Things By Eric Hoffer

Harper, 132 pp., $4.95 There is a fine passage in The Way We Live Now describing the art of murder by review. It takes only an hour, Trollope suggests, to work up enough expertise on any subject to make the author look like a natural idiot. There is at least some temptation to do that here. Reasons exist to praise Mr. Hoffer —his temperament, common sense and splendid act of self-creation—but he ought not to be mistaken for a savant. This book is shot through with some of the most appalling amateurisms in archaeology, history, philosophy and social thought that it has ever been my pleasure to grade C minus. Enough said; the reader will detour through all this and turn to other things of value.

RB

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Ronald Berman

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First Things, Last Things By Eric Hoffer

Harper, 132 pp., $4.95 There is a fine passage in The Way We Live Now describing the art of murder by review. It takes only an hour, Trollope suggests, to work up enough expertise on any subject to make the author look like a natural idiot. There is at least some temptation to do that here. Reasons exist to praise Mr. Hoffer —his temperament, common sense and splendid act of self-creation—but he ought not to be mistaken for a savant. This book is shot through with some of the most appalling amateurisms in archaeology, history, philosophy and social thought that it has ever been my pleasure to grade C minus. Enough said; the reader will detour through all this and turn to other things of value.