MAKE THIS THE LAST WAR—Michael Straighf—Harcourt, Brace ($3).
LET THE PEOPLE KNOW—Norman Angell—Viking ($2.50).
When the curtain rises on the post-war world the scene may be something like this: 6,000,000 German soldiers fleeing in disorder; 5,000,000 foreign workers and prisoners of war abandoning Germany; 2,000,000 Hungarian, Rumanian, Bulgarian and Spanish soldiers pouring home from the Eastern front; 3,000,000 Poles straggling back to their wasted territory; 50,000,000 Soviet citizens surging back into western Russia.
These desperate homegoers will return to many villages that have been destroyed and towns that have been razed or are filled with strangers. They will bring with them orphans, old and insane folk. They will bring scurvy, trachoma, malaria, typhus, and dysentery from eating grass and earth. Starvation may be so prevalent that the cannibalism of 1919 may again strike eastern Europe. Railroads that should carry these desperate people will be totally disorganized; horses may all have been eaten. No reserves of fuel and clothing will be on hand; no state authorities will exist to guide them. China, Japan, Malaya, The Netherlands East Indies will repeat this picture in other versions.
Such is Author Michael Straight's conception of the post-war scene. His Make This the Last War attempts to provide a plan-of-life not only for these desperate multitudes but for people the world over. Son of the late Willard Straight (founder of The New Republic, of which Author Straight is an editor) and brother of R.A.F. Acting Air Commodore Whitney Willard Straight, Author Straight took a triple-first degree in economics at Cambridge University, worked in the State Department as economist of the European Division. Now 26, he is awaiting induction as an aviation cadet in the U.S. Air Corps.
No such youngster is beknighted Nobel Peace Prizewinner Sir Norman Angell. At 68 Sir Norman has written 32 books, sat in the British Parliament, worked five years in the U.S. as a ranch hand. The British Empire's most noted apologist in America, Sir Norman's latest views on the post-war world have caused the Book-of-the-Month Club to select Let the People Know as its February choice along with Tregaskis' Guadalcanal Diary.
Sir Norman describes himself as "a Socialist in the British Labour Party or the American New Deal sense of the term," admits that "Socialists differ . . as to what Socialism really is." Safely unSocialist is his view of the causes and cures of World War II. Let the People Know attempts to convince "the average busy citizen" that wars are not caused by capitalists, vested interests, empires, divisions into Haves and Havenots. Wars come, he believes, because ordinary men are mis-educated, prejudiced. They come, especially, because man is nationalistically minded.