150 The Twentieth Century (1914- 1945)

for the most improbable of objects, the second much more
suitably critical but written without historical competence.948
Much more important is Bullock's massive life of the massive
Bevin; two volumes have appeared and there is still no end.949
Equally incomplete is the life of Bevan by his friend and dis-
ciple Foot.950 Butler was commissioned to write on Philip
Kerr, that over-valued devotee of Milner and Lloyd George
whose success as ambassador to the United States astonished
all who knew him.951 Smuts was as frequently a British states-
man as he was a South African politician: he merits mention
here, especially as Hancock's book is superior to most of the
biographies written about these people.952 A naval historian
has done justice to Jellicoe, the one English admiral to be
remembered solely for suffering a major defeat.953 One must
include a selection from the biographies of the many who,
though not politicians themselves, tried to play a political part
from the side-lines. Northcliffe, in many ways a little man
suffering from delusions of grandeur, is very suitably com-
memorated in a book which is much too long and heavily
overestimates him.954 Harrod does a friend's service to John
Maynard Keynes, and very nicely too;955 he is rather less kind
to Churchill's tame scientist, Londemann, who apparently did
not improve on personal acquaintance (and Harrod was per-

948 Eric Estorick, Stafford Cripps. L: Heinemann: 1949. Pp. viii, 378. -

Colin A. Coote, The Life of Richard Stafford Cripps. L: Hodder &

Stoughton; 1957. Pp. 415. Rev: EHR 73, 740.
*4* Alan Bullock, TJie Life and Times of Ernest Bevin, 2 vols. (so far).

L: Heinemann: 1960, 1967. Pp. xiii, 672; xii, 407.
fso Michael Foot, Anewrin Sevan, vol. i: 1897 - 1945. L: MacGibbon

& Kee: 1962. Pp. 536,
*51J. R. M. Butler, Lord Lothian, 1882-1940* L: Macmillan: 1960.

Pp. xiii, 385.
«52 W. Keith Hancock, Smuts, 2 vols. CUP: 1962, 1968. Pp. viii, 619;

xiii, 590. Rev: EHR 84, Sigf.; HJ 1i, tfisff.
051 A. Temple Patterson, Jellicoe: a biography, L: Macmillan: 1969.

Pp. 277. Rev: Hist 55, isif.
*« Reginald Pound and Geoffrey Harmswortfa, Nortfaliffe. L: Cas$eH:

*959- ?P- «vi» 933-

**» Roy F. Harrod, The Life of John Majmetrd Keynes. L: Macmillan:
1963. Pp. xvi, 674. Rev: AHR 57, I36ff.