+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p596 S 16 ’20 960w
BUNAU-VARILLA, PHILIPPE. Great adventure of Panama. *$1.75 Doubleday 986
20–5904
The object of the book is to show how the Panama canal enterprise was hedged about by criminal conspiracies on the part of Germany, both financially and politically, linking it intimately with the great war. The author claims to expose the mysterious threads of “the always-menacing ‘occult power of Germany’” which have long been visible to himself alone. Among the contents are: The occult power of Germany; The Boche conspiracy in Mexico (1861–63) preparing the provocation of 1870; The Boche conspiracy in France, (1888–92), to wreck the Panama canal, in order to create the depressed state of mind necessary for the premeditated aggression; Various traces of Boche intrigue in Bogota for defeating in 1903 the adoption of the Panama canal by the United States, etc.
Booklist 16:298 Je ’20
“The trouble with M. Bunau-Varilla’s method of argument in seeking to prove his contentions is that he considers a mere uncorroborated statement quite sufficient to prove anything that he wishes to prove.” T: R. Ybarra
− + N Y Times 25:158 Ap 4 ’20 1100w
“There is perhaps more rhetoric than evidence in certain parts of this narrative; yet it would not be surprising if evidence as yet uncovered should sometime confirm nearly all of the author’s opinions. Few fact stories, it may be said, tell so clearly as does this of M. Bunau-Varilla’s just how things were done and what motives actuated the doers.”
+ − No Am 212:285 Ag ’20 900w Outlook 126:768 D 29 ’20 300w