Books: Lest They Remember

KITCHENER: PORTRAIT OF AN IMPERIALIST (410 pp.)—Philip Magnus—Dutton ($6.50).

"Dear me," said Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, as he moved into the War Office in London in August 1914. "What a place! Not a scrap of army! Not even a pen that will write."

To most people—except Britons of 50 and above—Field Marshal Kitchener is no more than a half-remembered effigy from history's cluttered wardrobe room. Only a generation ago his name was synonymous with valor, duty and heroism, but today Kitchener is almost as forgotten as "Queen" Truganini.*Last year the jubilant Sudanese in the...