son’s analysis is any consideration ofnhow the extirpation of religion fromnpublic life has helped cause sexualnabuse. Since the media have collaboratednwith government in the secularizationnof public life, an analysis of thisnquestion would require more selfscrutinynthan most journalists can manage.nYet recent work by Yale historiannJohn Demos indicates that the place ofnreligion in a society may affect thenincidence of child abuse. Although hisnconcern is physical rather than sexualnabuse, Demos has suggested that childnabuse (as opposed to harsh discipline)nis distinctively a modern phenomenon,ncaused by urbanization, industrial development,nunemployment, on-the-jobnalienation, and the collapse of “then’providential’ world view of ournforebears — their belief that all things,nno matter how surprising and inscrutable,nmust be attributed to God’s overarchingnwill.” Because he fails to explorensuch cultural issues, Crewdsonngives only an expose wrapped in anneditorial.nNo doubt Crewdson is right thatnmany children have been “betrayed”nby the silence of those who knew of ornsuspected sexual abuse but said nothing.nBut a book like this one simplynadds to the senseless din making itnimpossible to reflect seriously upon ourncrisis of culture.nBryce J. Christensen is director of ThenRockford Institute Center on thenFamily in America.nThe 31st Presidentnby Paul GottfriednThe Life of Herbert Hoover: ThenHumanitarian, 1914-1917nby George H. NashnNew York and London:nW.W. Norton and Co.;n497 pp., $25.00nGeorge Nash, though still in hisnearly 40’s, has become one of ournmost prolific American historians. Hisnoutput consists of a seminal study of thenpostwar American Right, numerous essaysnon American conservatism, andnsince 1975 a multivolume biography ofnHerbert Hoover. His exhaustive re­n34/CHRONICLESnsearch into Hoover has yielded an introductorynvolume of more than 700npages, The Life of Herbert Hoover:nThe Engineer, 1874-1914 (1983), anlearned monograph, Herbert Hoovernand Stanford University (1988), andnnow the second part of the generalnbiography begun in 1975, The Life ofnHerbert Hoover: The Humanitarian,n1914-1917. Like all of Nash’s writings,nthe newest volume is meticulously researchednand immaculately written.nThough Nash identifies himself andnAmerican conservatism with the doctrinenof Progress, his work may in factnbe a throwback to the 19th century,nwhen history was widely viewed as andispassionate discipline intended forngentlemen who could rise above partisannimpulses. Nash always writes withnphilosophic detachment and rhetoricalnrestraint.nHis portrait of Hoover has won thenpraise of The Washington Post and,nmore predictably, of movement conservatives,nin both cases for good reason.nHoover, the fabulously successfulnmining engineer and world traveler,ndescended from and orphaned bynlowan Quakers, can be seen as annappropriate metonymy for the Americannon the make. The quest for wealthnand the passion for humanitarian servicenare both aspects of the Americanncharacter that Hoover personified. Henshowed other characteristically modernnAmerican traits as well, such as andualistic view of other nations. Hisninvolvement with Belgian relief duringnthe First World War aroused his revulsionnfor Imperial Germany and led himnto view the war as an ideological struggle.nHoover, no less than PresidentnWoodrow Wilson and Colonel EdwardnHouse, went from support ofnselective humanitarian aid (in view ofnthe massive British blockade of Germany,naid could go to the Allies more .neasily than it could to the beleaguerednGermans), to the judging of Germanynas a political threat, and, from there, tona call for a democratic crusade againstnthe powers of darkness. Hoover wasnurging on Wilson a program of nationalnmobilization even before war wasndeclared. Notes Nash: “The humanitarian-turning-war-mobilizernwasnwell aware that his appeal for centralizednsocial control ran against thenAmerican tradition of states’ rights andneven (he noted several times) the Con­nnnstitution. But to him there was nonalternative.”nIn England during the war. Hoovernconsorted with disciples of RichardnCobban, the 19th-century radicalndemocrat who had taught that freentrade would usher in an age of internationalism’^ndnequality. Hoover’s affinitynfor Cobban and his disciples tellsnmuch about his early philosophic orientation,nthough it is equally true thatnas an elder statesman he gave evidencenof a sober, realistic side. In his cautiousnattitude toward American interventionnduring the Second World War and,nthen, in the Cold War, Hoover becamenthe mentor of Robert Taft and abandonednhis Wilsonianism — despite hisncontinued tributes to someone he hadnonce served. At some point, Americanfor Hoover ceased to be a propositionnand became a real country, with legitimatennational interests.nThough Nash has not yet reachednthe post-Wilsonian Hoover, he doesnsuggest in the first two volumes somethingnthat may account for his subject’snevolution from Utopian internationalistnto old-fashioned patriot. Much ofnHoover’s adult years until the 1920’snwere spent outside the United States,nin China, Belgium, France, England,nand Russia. Throughout these years.nHoover struggled with the question ofnAmerican identity in relation to thenrest of the world. What distinguishednhis experience growing up in Iowa,nOregon, and California from the waynof life among non-Americans, particularlynAsians? In his younger years,nHoover was accustomed to respondn”equality of opportunity,” as if Americannlife on the plains or in the PacificnNorthwest at the end of the 19thncentury could be reduced to a singlenrhetorical phrase.nBut in his later years, one suspects,nhe came to see the American experiencenof his youth as a unique culturenthat could not be exported en bloc.nDespite the Utopian and statist phase ofnHoover’s life depicted in volume two,none expects to find Hoover transformednagain in the later volumes. Thenglobal crusader lived long enough tonbecome a defender of American libertiesnand a critic of his own middle-agednenthusiasms.nPaul Gottfried is a senior editor atnThe World and I.n