THE CRIMSON BOOKSHELF

(The Yankee in the British Zone: by Ewen C. MacVeagh and Lee D. Brown. With a foreword by Gen. Leonard Wood. Illustrated G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York: 1920.)

The flood of volumes engendered by the European conflict seems to have abated. Though a rather diffident Senate has not yet seen fit to usher in a final peace, the reading public has issued the dictum: "Nothing more about the war!" "The Yankee in the British Zone" is a courageous challenge to this decision, and as such, if for no other cause, deserves consideration.

Captain MacVeagh and his collaborator have told in a simple narrative style the experiences of that small part of the A.E.F. which came into direct contact with the English and Colonial soldiery. They have given a really pleasing picture of the dogged Britisher, and the kilted Scotsman, and the "Aussie" with his devil-may-care swagger. And they have revealed with a wealth of anecdote the warm relationships which sprang up between these veterans of three years and the American doughboy full of nervous energy, and with all the serious enthusiasm of a schoolboy.

The story is just such a one as any returned soldier might tell in any American home, and yet it is not without its elements of characteristic humor--as witness the butcher from the Windy City stockyards who is said to have written to his Chicago Mabel that the job wasn't so very different from his regular job at home only "not so regular."