THE SOUL OF BATTLE: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny. By Victor Davis Hanson. Free Press. 480 pp. $30
FRANCE ON THE BRINK: A Great Civilization Faces the New Century. By Jonathan Fenby. Arcade. 449 pp. $27.95
FAREWELL: A Memoir of a Texas Childhood. By Horton Foote. Scribner. 287 pp. $24
SIN IN SOFT FOCUS: Pre-Code Hollywood. By Mark A. Vieira. Harry N. Abrams. 240 pp. $39.95
PRE-CODE HOLLYWOOD: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930–1934. By Thomas Doherty. Columbia Univ. Press. 430 pp. $49.50 cloth, $19.50 paper
By James Wood. Random House. 272pp. $24
WHAT A BLESSING SHE HAD CHLOROFORM: The Medical and Social Response to the Pain of Childbirth from 1800 to the Present. By Donald Caton. Yale Univ. Press. 288 pp. $30
THE MEN THEY WILL BECOME: The Nature and Nurture of Male Character. By Eli Newberger Perseus Books. 288 pp. $25
FASTER: The Acceleration of Just About Everything. By James Gleick. Pantheon. 324 pp. $24
AN AFFAIR OF STATE: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton. By Richard A. Posner. Harvard Univ. Press. 276 pp. $24.95
DANTE ALIGHIERI: Divine Comedy, Divine Spirituality. By Robert Royal. Crossroad. 246 pp. $16.95