God's Fifth Column: A Biography of the Age: 1890-1940

William Gerhardie. Overlook Press, $22.95 (360pp) ISBN 978-0-87951-421-1

To English historian and novelist Gerhardie (1895-1977), history is defined by a battle between self-interest and spiritual love; he offers witty, idiosyncratic profiles of Tolstoy, Woodrow Wilson, Hitler, Lenin and Shaw, among others. (Apr.)

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