Books in Brief: Triumph

Triumph by John Kenneth Galbraith (Houghton Mifflin, $4.95). In an introductory “explanation” Mr. Galbraith confesses that he is using this novel to tell a story he has tried to tell before in articles and lectures. He wants us all to know that the State Department is immobilized by middle-to-high echelon types brought up in the Neanderthal days of the cold war—they believe that Communism exists, and is bad. It is they who launch the Bay of Pigses and the Dominican interventions; it is they, in Triumph, who make sure that the progressive government that throws out the old dictator in Puerto Santos will fail for lack of the Yanqui dollar. The good guys are brought down, the bad guys are about to triumph again as Triumph closes. The novel has been used often enough in the past as a vehicle for social reform: Dickens, Zola, even the John Steinbeck of In Dubious Battle were successful practitioners of the form. They carried the day because they could involve their readers, get them emotionally entangled in the miseries of their characters: they were novelists first, propagandists second. Mr. Galbraith is an economist.

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Priscilla L. Buckley

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Triumph by John Kenneth Galbraith (Houghton Mifflin, $4.95). In an introductory “explanation” Mr. Galbraith confesses that he is using this novel to tell a story he has tried to tell before in articles and lectures. He wants us all to know that the State Department is immobilized by middle-to-high echelon types brought up in the Neanderthal days of the cold war—they believe that Communism exists, and is bad. It is they who launch the Bay of Pigses and the Dominican interventions; it is they, in Triumph, who make sure that the progressive government that throws out the old dictator in Puerto Santos will fail for lack of the Yanqui dollar. The good guys are brought down, the bad guys are about to triumph again as Triumph closes. The novel has been used often enough in the past as a vehicle for social reform: Dickens, Zola, even the John Steinbeck of In Dubious Battle were successful practitioners of the form. They carried the day because they could involve their readers, get them emotionally entangled in the miseries of their characters: they were novelists first, propagandists second. Mr. Galbraith is an economist.