BOOKS
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Giuliano is grim and comic-in the intervals between murder and black–
mail this pessimistic gangster plotted the annexation of Sicily to the
United States-but I am inclined to think that Miss Clark invests it
with more meaning than it can bear. The essay on Belli is, to me, the
only downright disappointment
in
the book, in spite of several acute
passages. Somehow the poet does not come off as well as he was
intended to; indeed, Trilussa, a kind of modern Roman Aesop who is
casually dismissed here in a phrase, would seem, on the evidence, to be
the more powerful, both as poet and as satirist.
o
Roma nobilis,
orbis et domina!
So the ancient song of the pilgrims. Miss Clark is a pilgrim, too, though
she would hardly join in that chant. Yet I am not sure, after all: the
phrases flash out here and there, muffled by the traffic and the street–
cries, the bells, and, above all, the water.
I saw water,
says the introit,
gushing from the right side of the temple: Allcluya: and all those to
whom that water came were saved.
No. Too sanguine. This water brings no salvation. But it is a strong
enchantment.
Dudley Fitts
SOCIALISM IN ARREARS
CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM ON TRIAL.
By
Fritz Sternberg. John
Doy. $6.50.
The author of this book is a well-known former German left–
wing socialist, who has published many works both in his native country
and in America. Many years ago he made an original theoretical con–
tribution in a study of imperialism, which established his reputation as
an important figure among the younger generation of European Marxists.
His work was based on an acceptance of many features of Rosa Luxem–
burg's theory of the "Accumulation of Capital." Sternberg, however,
simplified Luxemburg's approach and method, thereby making new con–
verts to her basic view: that capitalism can only exist by constantly
expanding into non-capitalist social strata and lands. From that view
Sternberg never deviated in later years, and it is the basis of his present
work, though there are no specific references to the Marxist debates
over imperialism.
The book does not quite suit its title. There is no systematic com-
