Dartmouth Authors

Charles E. Widmayer '30. Hopkins of Dartmouth: The Story of Ernest Martin Hopkins and His Presidency of Dartmouth College. University Press of New England, 1977. 312 pp. $18.00. Widmayer's history of the Hopkins presidency is the most important book about Dartmouth College in many decades. It is also the most readable. For Widmayer is that exceptional kind of craftsman who seemingly does not know how to write a clumsy sentence or construct a loose paragraph. His subject demanded such skill because it was during the 29 years of Hopkins' leadership that Dartmouth's 20th-century mission as an undergraduate institution was largely formulated and then transformed into the tangibles of academic programs, faculty members, and the bricks and mortar of new College buildings. To be sure, from the historical point of view, as Widmayer points out, Hopkins can be seen as pursuing and extending the policies and goals already enunciated by an eminent predecessor, William Jewett Tucker. Hopkins himself said as much. Nevertheless, modesty aside, the Dartmouth he bequeathed to his successor in 1945 was a very different institution from the Dartmouth of Tucker (or Nichols) which he had taken over in 1916; it bore, that is, the unique stamp of Ernest Martin Hopkins.

"Those who miss the joy miss all": Steven- son's aphorism was one of Hopkins' favorites; he used it in talking to the students on his first Dartmouth Night in 1916, and he returned to it in his valedictory remarks in 1945. Ernest Martin Hopkins' joy in his life, in his life's work, in his College, permeates this book. So does the joy of his biographer Charles Widmayer. Subject and author have seldom been as well matched. (Excerpted in the April issue.)

Belden L. Daniels '32. Pennsylvania,Birthplace of Banking in America. Pennsylvania Bankers Association, 1976. Soft- cover, 365 pp. The emphasis is on the founding of the earliest banks in America, an enterprise rooted in the turmoil of the Revolution and in the desire of a few Pennsylvania patriots - apparently more selfless than one might have supposed - to finance the War and to establish a new, financially secure nation. Daniels' history extends well into the 20th century, but his heart is clearly with the earlier, stormier times of the 18th. One's interest is enhanced by the fact that the author doesn't write like a banker; he writes like a historian And that makes all the difference.

John Spiegel '34 and Donald Light. TheDynamics of University Protest. Nelson-Hall Publishers, 1977. 198 pp. Dr. Spiegel is an M.D., past president of the American Psychiatric Association, and currently a professor of social psychology at Brandeis; Light is a senior research sociologist at CCNY. Together, with the assistance of four colleagues and co-authors, they undertake a six-part analysis of the structural dynamics of the student protest movement of the sixties. They analyze such subjects as the current state of the literature on student unrest, the dynamics of both student protest and faculty response, and the group psychology of the student movement. Conceding that "the era of student protest is dead in the minds of most people," the authors nevertheless argue for the contemporary relevance of their study because the social tensions and dislocations which produced the protest remain now of much the same kind and intensity. "To some," they conclude, "this will be considered the last book of that era, but it may be the first book of the next."

Bruce Sloan '57, ed. Cavers, Caves, and Caving. Rutgers University Press, 1977. 409 pp., 141 illustrations. $12.50. An anthology for both specialist and amateur. It will have a special appeal for the active caver, but the general reader - armchair caver, amateur naturalist,"or just plain traveler - will also find it of interest. Authoritative short essays by 18 contributors, all associated with the National Speleological Society, examine all aspects of caves and caving in the United States, the Bahamas, and Puerto Rico: their geological formation, the plants and animals which inhabit them, and the people who explore and study them.

Professor Emeritus of Geology.

Lawrence G. Hines, Professor of Economics. The Persuasion of Price: Introductory Micro-Economics. Winthrop Publishers, 1977. 366 pp. $9.95. A text designed for introductory courses in economics and for price-theory courses. Hines, who specializes in public finance and tax and fiscal problems, has also written a recent book on the economic aspects of environmental questions.