77

Book Reviews

The Essential Criticism of John Stein-
beck’s Of Mice and Men. Ed. Michael 
J. Meyer. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow 
Press, 2009. 364p. alk. paper, $55 (ISBN 
9780810867338). LC 2008-051372.

John Steinbeck’s 1937 novella Of Mice and 
Men is one of the most popular works of 
American literature and also one of the 
most widely studied. Although deemed 
a failure by Steinbeck himself, this brief 
fable about two itinerant California ranch 
hands went on to win largely favorable re-
views, selection by the Book of the Month 
Club, and successful transformation into 
a play and three movies. OMAM (as it is 
commonly referred to) is required read-
ing in many schools and colleges, making 
George and Lenny familiar figures to 
generations of American youth.

Michael J. Meyer, the editor of this col-
lection of criticism, is adjunct professor of 
English at DePaul University and North-
eastern Illinois University, coeditor of A 
John Steinbeck Encyclopedia (Greenwood, 
2006), and author of The John Steinbeck 
Bibliography, 1996–2006 (Scarecrow, 
2008). It is not immediately clear that the 
world needs another anthology on this 
topic. A number of critical introductions 
to Of Mice and Men already exist, not to 
mention guides in the Cliff’s Notes and 
Barron’s series. General collections of 
Steinbeck criticism also tend to include 
a few essays on this work. For example, 
The Short Novels of John Steinbeck: Critical 
Essays with a Checklist to Steinbeck Criti-
cism (Duke, 1990) contains the articles by 
Spilka, Goldhurst, and Loftis reprinted in 
Meyer’s new collection. 

Perhaps Meyer’s goal was to bring the 
history of Steinbeck criticism up to the 
present day. He provides brief commen-
tary on critical approaches decade by de-
cade; annotated bibliographies of impor-
tant studies; articles and book excerpts; 
and three new critical essays (on English 
Romanticism, the theme of loneliness and 

isolation, and use of musical 
intertextuality). An appendix 
lists online sites replete with 
suggestions for lesson plans, 
learning activities, writing 
assignments, vocabulary, 
and historical background. 
Harried or jaded teachers looking for new 
material are clearly an intended audience 
for the book. As Meyer says, “In each 
new analysis, readers will find creative 
ideas for approaching a novel that is over 
seventy years old.” 

Initial reviews of the novel were above 
all descriptive and evaluative. Of Mice and 
Men was seen by most reviewers (includ-
ing Eleanor Roosevelt) as a confirmation 
of Steinbeck’s artistic promise, a vivid, 
expressive, and compassionate story of 
simple people struggling for happiness. 
Mark Van Doren’s negative review in The 
Nation was a notable exception. The ques-
tion of sentimentality was raised early on. 
Some found the plot contrived and the 
characters lacking in free will.

As Steinbeck’s reputation grew in 
the following decades, scholarly and 
biographical criticism began to appear. 
Critics were particularly interested in 
Steinbeck’s use of myths and symbols, as 
well as the psychology of the characters. 
By the 1960s and 1970s, OMAM was a 
canonical work; synthetic treatments such 
as those in the Twayne series began to be 
published. The text served as a mirror on 
which new critical interpretations were 
reflected: the curse of Cain, the play-nov-
elette form. As the decades rolled along, 
repetition began to set in, but new topics 
such as race, mental health, eugenics, and 
gender were introduced in the 1990s. 

All of Meyer’s selections are interest-
ing and worth reading for their own 
sake, but the whole truly is greater than 
the sum of its parts. Why is it that this 
particular work has become entrenched 
in the school curriculum, and why are 



78 College & Research Libraries January 2010

so many interpretations and judgments 
possible? Is it the fact that OMAM is a 
play in narrative form, consisting almost 
entirely of dialogue? Is it because of the 
range of characters, including the two 
leads but also the ranch owner, his son 
Curley, Curley’s young wife, a black 
hand, an idealized cowboy, and others? 
Certainly the novel allows schoolchildren 
to study the Great Depression and the 
plight of the homeless and dispossessed, 
but there is more to it than that. Of Mice 
and Men has attained something like the 
status of folklore, and the characters live 
outside the text, in the classroom and the 
imagination. 

Despite some confusing layout, and 
proofreading lapses (see p. 7 for missing 
words), the book could be of practical use 
to teachers and students, even though 
abundant material is available through 
open access on the Web. There is some-
thing to be said for the chronological ap-
proach, which provides a history not only 
of Steinbeck criticism, but of American 
culture.—Jean Alexander, Carnegie Mellon 
University.

Jacob Soll. The Information Master: Jean-
Baptiste Colbert’s Secret State Intelli-
gence System. Ann Arbor: University 
of Michigan Press, 2009. 277p. alk. 
paper, $65 (ISBN 9780472116904). LC 
2008-051142.

In recent years, historians of early mod-
ern Europe have increasingly turned to 
the theme of information in society as 
a historiographical framework for their 
research. This “informational turn” has 
begun to yield a number of studies on 
how information institutions (such as li-
braries, archives, museums) and practices 
(including the collection, organization, 
communication, and utilization of infor-
mation) contributed to the social, econom-
ic, political, and cultural processes that 
shaped the contours of life in European 
societies between the Renaissance and 
the Enlightenment. One topic that has 
attracted considerable scholarly attention 
is the administrative and political use of 

information in early modern European 
states. The intersection of information 
practices, governmental administration, 
and political purposes provides the 
thematic backdrop for the book under 
review, in which Jacob Soll, an associate 
professor of history at Rutgers University 
and specialist in the political and cultural 
history of early modern France, presents 
a wide-ranging and richly documented 
study of how one of Louis XIV’s most 
prominent ministers, Jean-Baptiste Col-
bert (1619–1683), harnessed a number 
of information institutions and practices 
into a “state information system” to sup-
port the administrative apparatus and 
absolutist ambitions of the French state 
under the Sun King. 

 Born into a merchant family and 
trained in the mercantile arts, Colbert en-
tered into state administration at an early 
age and rose to prominence in the 1650s as 
financial manager for, and administrative 
factotum to, Cardinal Mazarin, the chief 
minister of France. From 1661 until his 
death in 1683, Colbert was a leading mem-
ber of Louis XIV’s council of state: serving 
as minister of finance, trade, industry, and 
the navy, he came to control virtually all 
aspects of government administration 
apart from military affairs. He proved to 
be an effective minister, putting in place 
policies designed to rationalize state ad-
ministration, strengthen the position of 
the state vis-à-vis local governments and 
religious authorities, develop French do-
mestic industry and commerce, promote 
French mercantile activity abroad, and 
advance the arts and sciences in France. 
Colbert’s effectiveness as an administrator 
was due not only to a remarkable capacity 
for work and considerable skill in the art 
of wielding political power, but also, as 
Soll argues, to his adeptness at obtaining, 
managing, and deploying the informa-
tion he needed to make policy decisions 
and carry out his many-sided political 
program. Indeed, a primary thesis of the 
book is that, by integrating a wide array 
of information sources, institutions, and 
practices into his administrative system,