MANIFESTO OF A PASSIONATE MODERATE: Unfashionable Essays. By Susan Haack. Univ. of Chicago Press. 223 pp. $22.50
ABOUT FACE: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China,from Nixon to Clinton. By James Mann. Knopf. 420 pp. $30
THE LAST AVANT-GARDE: The Making of the New York School of Poets. By David Lehman. Doubleday. 433 pp. $27.50
By Edward Alexander. Indiana Univ.Press. 284 pp. $35
By James H. Billington. TV Books.269 pp. $29.95
By Donald Norman. MIT Press.315 pp. $25
BY Stephen J. Pyne. Viking.199 pp. $24.95
By Mitchell Stephens. Oxford Univ.Press. 259 pp. $27.50