Books: Ravenous for Personalities

A FRAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY (116 pp.)—John Gunther—Harper & Row ($3.50).

Never again can history be the privileged property of historians. It has been invaded in force by straying journalists who are ready and anxious to assess it long before the scholars. Journalists Mark Sullivan and Frederick Lewis Allen wrote lively and snappy accounts of contemporary history. But of all the journalists who have attempted history none has made more of a name at it than John Gunther, 61, whose seven Inside books have been bestsellers around the world. "My grand design," writes Gunther in this brief but entertaining autobiography, "is to do...