Books: Old Rome and the U. S. A.

CAESAR AND CHRIST—Will Durant—Simon & Schuster ($5).

In spite of his seven-league-boot habits of scholarship and composition, Will Durant is a master of synthesis arid luminous narrative. Caesar and Christ, third volume of the monumental Story of Civilization which he expects to finish by 1955 (already published: Our Oriental Heritage; The Life of Greece), may lack moral passion. But as clear exposition of an immensely complicated story, it is magnificent.

The End of Checks & Balances. The fate of Rome haunts a modern world that has been unable to solve its own social problems, either...