College and Research Libraries groups is among the best. She stresses the critical importance of friends groups, which she terms the "core of the development program" and "the critical factor in the longer term investment of bequests, significant donations of gifts- in-kind, capital programs, and the build- ing of endowment funds." Hood highlights the key elements in develop- ing a vital friends group (e.g., programs, newsletters) and describes the various ways in which volunteers can become involved in library operations as well as in fund raising drives. In their chapter on grants, Helen W. Samuels and Samuel A. Streit describe government agencies with an interest in libraries and note where interests overlap. The reader, however, will have to go to other sources to develop ยท a clearer understanding of how to approach foundations. In her chapter "Donor and Donor Re- lations," Charlene Clark describes the typical donor as a conservative or re- ligious person who views his or her con- tribution as an investment in the institution's future. Surely this is too nar- row a characterization of donors. Vartan Gregorian, now president of Brown Uni- versity, who provided the brief introduc- tion to Raising Money, proved himself a master of fund raising on behalf of the New York Public Library when he was head of that institution. It would have been fascinating to have his views on why people give and under what cir- cumstances.-Eva M. Sartori, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska. Allen, James Smith. In the Public Eye: A History of Reading in Modern France, 1800-1940. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Pr., 1991. 325p. $39.50 (ISBN 0- 691-03162-2). LC 90-28810. James Allen's book on reading in mod- ern France is an adventurous explora- tion of relatively new territory. The author has assembled and synthesized an enormous and diverse body of sources to address a topic fundamental to the social history of ideas. Influenced by recent studies of reading in early modern Europe, he poses three basic questions: In what circumstances did Book Reviews 271 people read in France from 1800 to 1940? How did they read? What did their read- ing mean to them and why? These ques- tions correspond roughly to the three divisions of the book and are framed in the context of contemporary theories on reception and reader-response. There is no single thesis to prove, nor are there striking discoveries; instead Allen draws a lively range of observations from the mass of sources he surveys. The primary focus is on readers' per- sonal perspectives. A variety of contextual factors influenced these perspectives, many of them indicated by data that are relatively clear, such as literacy rates, publishing statistics, educational trends (especially in the study of literary texts), and censorship. These areas are deftly described in a tour de force of survey and synthesis. Just as important to the study are the socially defined predispositions that led readers to derive certain mean- ings from reading. Different interpretive communities are shown to determine reader response, based on such factors as regional perspectives, class identification, or gender-consciousness. Whatever the context, reading gradually developed into a private act of self-discovery, subject to the personal and even creative involve- ment of the reader. In general, the reac- tion to literary texts reflected a delayed grasp of literary trends, meaning that readers' responses evoked the themes of classicism, romanticism, realism, or symbolism long after those movements became prominent features of literary representation. The book often seems to be as concerned with attitudes toward authors and reading as it is with the act of reading itself, highlighting the public or socially correct image of literary engage- ment. This is a perfectly valid approach in French cultural studies, where the tradition and sometimes the mythology of an actively literate society continue to play such important roles. Image, jux- taposed with reality, comes into sharper focus as the author defines the historical context. The focus of the study, the methodology, and the choice of sources are narrower than the title indicates. The variety of 272 College & Research Libraries potential sources is daunting, as are the limitations inherent in each category of document that records reading and im- plies reader response. Recognizing the weaknesses of individual sources, the author relies on a massive assemblage of diverse material that in the aggregate is more illustrative than its individual parts. At the same time, there is heavy reliance on single texts or artistic images as representative of various categories. Nine of the ten chapters begin, for ex- ample, with either a textual example or a historical moment that is used to sug- gest a broad theme. Among the sources considered are artistic depictions-the subject of an entire chapter-and records of reading experience as noted in novels, diaries, memoirs, correspondence, and critical reviews. Probably the most sig- nificant source is one that has never been thoroughly examined: the large collec- tions of fan letters sent to members of the Academie frmu;aise and to other authors who saved a large amount of their mail. Although a problematic source, partly due to the selective nature of these col- lections and patterns of flattery, the let- ters are especially amenable to Allen's line of investigation. He selects 1,450 let- ters sent to ten major authors: Mme. de Stael, Stendhal, Balzac, Baudelaire, Sue, Flaubert, Michelet, the Goncourts, Zola, and Anatole France. Sue, Michelet, and France receive the most attention, mainly because of the wide response aroused by the controversial works they published. The range of sources, although enor- mous, is definitely weighted toward higher culture. There is some attention to more mundane publications, such as newspapers and schoolbooks, but only peripheral consideration of the printed word in the life .of less active readers, those whose reading included almanacs, accounting guides, manuals, prayer books, or popular literature. Because selection of sources is so crucial to further research on this topic, it is a pity that Allen's book could not contain a full bibliography to bring together the entire range of mate- rial used. Even with the voluminous footnotes, generally well-explained ta- May1992 bles, and a selected bibliography of ar- chival sources, it would have been help- ful for scholars to have the same type of topical bibliography as Allen was able to include in his first book, Popular French Romanticism: Authors, Readers, and Books in the 19th Century. The book is strongest in its distillation of dispa~ate historical sources on print- ing and reading and in the way it offers an impetus for further investigation of all areas of reading. It opens the possi- bility of mining additional sources for studies on modern France that could be patterned after the work Roger Chartier and Robert Darnton have done on the early modern period, and it gives direc- tion to future scholarship in the area of reading culture, including cafe society, discussion clubs, bookstore develop- ment, and other aspects of the literary scene. If, by the nature of its sources, this work often has to be more impressionis- tic than empirical, the conclusion seems reasonable throughout. Clearly, this study contributes significantly to the his- tory of reading.-Mary Jane Parrine, Sta1Zford University, Stanford, California. Reich, Robert B. The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st-Century Capitalism. New York: Knopf, 1991. 331 p . $24 (ISBN 0-394-58352-3). In his latest book, The Work of Nations: Prepari1lg Ourselves for 21st-Century Capi- talism, Robert B. Reich, political economist at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government takes issue with the state- ment made by President Bush in his 1989 inaugural address: "We have more will than wallet, but will is what we need." Reich believes "We have the wallet, but do we have the will?" is the real question that Bush should pose to the American public. Deliberately, persuasively, harshly, Reich informs the reader how old defini- tions of economic nationalism no longer pertain, how new work patterns in "global webs" remove us from daily national social problems, and why we need to recognize that "our mutual ob- ligations as citizens extend beyond our economic usefulness to one another, and act accordingly."