ALL THE BEST IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

by Sydney Clark '12. Dodd Meadand Company, 1952; x, 372 pp., illustrations,maps, and index. $4.00.

This is a natural addition to the even dozen previous volumes in the present series by Sydney Clark. The latest book is a lucid blend of sound suggestions for travelers with about the optimum proportion of picturesque descriptive detail. The style achieves remarkable success in being both informal and informative, sprightly and serious, enthusiastic and sophisticated.

The treatment is systematic. First come succinct comments upon available routes by plane and ship, passports and visas, foreign currencies, hints on shopping abroad, inoculations, tips, and other matters in the foreground of the traveler's mind. The itinerary then followed includes Portugal, Madeira, Barcelona, Majorca, several cities in southern Spain, Gibraltar, Tangier, coastal France, Corsica, Italy, Sicily, Malta, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey.

To cover such an ambitious itinerary in one volume seems impossible, and would be except for an author like Sydney Clark, who has personally, repeatedly, recently, and thoroughly seen all the countries described, who has read and written books of travel galore, and who clearly shows his real regard for all of the many kinds of Americans who long to see all the world, even if it must be all at once.

The author's savior faire is commendable in his assignment of space among the countries. Without neglecting France and Italy, he allots more than twice as much discussion to Egypt and Syria. The reason assigned for this is that the western Mediterranean is traditionally more familiar to Americans; but time will tell whether this emphasis upon the Near East is symptomatic of a major shift in American interests as evidenced now in our changing habits of travel.

Sydney Clark faces squarely the most difficult obligation confronting any author of books for this generation of American travelers: the duty of doing his utmost to make us endurable abroad. This author says: "The power of tourism ... is beyond computing. It can further divide a divided world or it can heal a few crevices and brighten the name of America." In this spirit throughout the book the reader is imperceptibly impelled toward a sympathetic appreciation of the differing ways of other men in other lands.

In addition to all this, the book has verve and gusto. It not only will succeed but it deserves to.