A weak bundle of quotations

"Third Ways" by Allan C. Carlson is something of a disappointment. There is very little analysis and background, and the whole book feels like a compilation of quotations from other sources. It doesn't feel like a scholarly work. Rather, the author comes across as a librarian or archivist. Perhaps he *is* a librarian? The dustjucket doesn't list any particular scholarly merits.

The chapter on peasant populism in East Europe is particularly weak. The various peasant parties did *not* have a similar political orientation, and Carlson's attempts to claim Bulgarian peasant leader Stamboliski (essentially a socialist) as one of the Distributist crowd, is particularly weak.

For a better introduction to peasant parties in interwar Eastern Europe, see "Peasants in power" by John D. Bell and "Comintern and Peasant in Eastern Europe 1919-1930" by George D. Jackson.

But yes, the fact that Carlson is a Chesterton look-alike is quite funny.

Beer, anyone?