Random House, he was bringing withnhim a Ufelong admiration for ThenCatcher in the Rye. But six years, twoncourt cases, and three versions later,nthe biography Hamilton ended up withnis a far cry from an appreciation. By thentime it was over, Hamilton was itchingnto pounce on Salinger, and only tooneager to denigrate even Salinger’s fiction,nwhich he used to admire sonmuch.nThe single most interesting questionnregarding Salinger is, what have hisnliterary efforts consisted of ever sincenhe went into hiding? After two decadesnthe closest thing to an answer has beennprovided not by Hamilton, but by thendefense attorney who compelled Salingernunder oath to reply, “Could I tellnyou or would I tell you? . . . Just anwork of fiction. That’s all. That’s thenonly description I can really give it. . . .nIt’s almost impossible to define. I worknwith characters, and as they develop, Injust go on from there.”nThe book was originally schedulednto be published by Random House innAugust 1986, but Hamilton was coercednby Salinger’s objections to modifynhis first version, which incorporatedn200 letters written by Salinger betweenn1939 and 1961. After removing thenoffending letters from the text butnretaining their content, Hamilton lost anfederal appeals case in January 1987,nand was forbidden to publish his alterednversion on the grounds that evennparaphrased, the material in the lettersnbelongs to Salinger. As others havennoted, it was ironic that Salinger wasnforced to emerge from seclusion andnbecome front-page news for the sake ofnmaintaining his cryptic persona in ancourt of law.nBy revising his biography a thirdntime and finally publishing it in May,nHamilton may have abided by thenletter of the law. But by eliminating allnevidence of the letters, he has producedna book that isn’t worth reading.nTo fill out the pages of his alreadynslim biography, Hamilton had to comenup with some new material. What henhas done is intersperse his unavoidablyninconclusive, crazy-quilt version of Salinger’snlife with discussions of the problemsnhe encountered in writing it.nHamilton includes descriptions of thenethical dilemmas that roamed throughnhis biographer’s mind while doing hisnresearch. Unfortuiiately, this results innlittle more than self-conscious babblenas a running side-text.n”It would be a biography, yes, but itnwould also be a semispoof in which thenbiographer would play a leading, sometimesncomic role,” explains Hamiltonnin a typical passage. “I set off for NewnYork — or we did: me grappling feeblynwith the moral issues and my biographizingnalter ego, now my constantncompanion, merely eager to getnon with the job,” he writes in another.nIn lieu of pertinent facts and information,nHamilton provides catty characterninvestigation. It’s as if Hamiltonnwere no longer a revered literary critic,nbut one of the “section men” thatnFranny tells Lane about. “A sectionnman’s a person that takes over a classnwhen the professor isn’t there,” explainsnFranny. “He’s usually a graduatenstudent or something. Anyway, if it’s ancourse in Russian literature, say, hencomes in . . . starts knocking Turgenevnfor about a half hour. Then, whennhe’s finished, when he’s completelynmined Turgenev for you, he startsntalking about Stendhal or somebody henwrote his thesis for his M.A. on.nWhere I go, the English Departmentnhas about ten little section men runningnaround ruining things for people,nand they’re all so brilliant they cannhardly open their mouths — pardonnthe contradiction. I mean if you getninto an argument with them, all theyndo is get this terribly benign expressionn…”nDavid Kaufman is a theater critic innNew York City.nPax ThroughnStrengthnby E. Christian KopffnSenate and General: IndividualnDecision-Making and RomannForeign Relations 264-194 B.C.nby Arthur M. EcksteinnBerkeley: University of CaUfornianPress; 381 pp., $39.95nIn the general collapse of humanenstudies that marks the declining decadesnof the 20th century, a few areasncontinue to produce important scholarship.nOne of those fields is Romannnnhistory, especially the history of thenRoman Republic. Emilio Gabba in Italy,nChristian Meier in Germany, ErnstnBadian and Togo Salmon in NorthnAmerica, to name some of the best,nhave produced books and articles thatnare both original and readable. ArthurnEckstein’s Senate and General reassuresnus that this tradition is not dyingnout. Senate and General is as indispensablenfor understanding the sinuositiesnof Roman foreign policy as Badian’snclassic Foreign Clientelae (1958).nWas the Roman expansion thatnended with the domination of thenentire Mediterranean a case of “muddlingnthrough,” or was it the result of anpolicy of aggression, carefully monitorednby the Roman Senate? Thensecond view has the (sometimes shaky)nsupport of the great Greek historiannPolybius, and was at the heart of WilliamnHarris’s forceful War and Imperialismnin Republican Rome, 327-70nB.C. (1979). However, Eckstein’snclose reading of the sources reveals thatnno single explanation will enable us tonunderstand the enormous transformationnthat came over the world as Romenmoved from its position as the greatestnpower in Italy in the early 3rd century,nB.C., to the dominant force in thenMediterranean just a century later. Annumber of key decisions, however,nfrom the start of the First Punic War tonthe defeat of the Macedonian monarchy,nwhich placed Greece in Rome’snhands, were made by generals on theirnown and only later confirmed by thenSenate.nMany arguments found here havenappeared in Eckstein’s articles in scholarlynjournals. Their presentation in ancoherent fashion clarifies as never beforenjust how Roman policy was rootednin a basically defensive senatorial policynthat was perpetually evolving in thenface of the decisions made by Romanngenerals, who were themselves affectednby many quite diverse factors. AppiusnClaudius involved Rome in the FirstnPunic War in 264 for glory’s sake.nGaius Servilius Geminus’ attack on thenGauls in 203 has seemed to manynscholars to be the beginning of a majornRoman offensive. Eckstein shows thatnthe general was probably trying tonrescue his father, who was a Gallicnhostage.nIn a state that possessed no StatenDepartment or any standing bureau-nMAY 1989/37n