Notable

THE WOOING OF EARTH by Rene Dubos Scribners; 183 pages; $8.95

Environmentalists view the world's wilderness areas as sacrosanct places that must be left untouched. Their concern strikes Essayist and Microbiologist Rene Dubos as ironic. Dubos, who is perhaps known best for his work in using microbes to produce disease-fighting drugs, points out that many of the areas weekend backpackers and others consider so beautiful resulted from degradation of the environment. The sere hills of Greece were produced by deforestation and erosion; the Downs of England owe their lushness to the introduction of sheep grazing; the orchards and fields of New England are the creation of civilization. "Humanized environments," writes Dubos, "give us confidence because nature has been reduced to the human scale, but the wilderness in whatever form almost compels us to measure ourselves against the cosmos." He argues that man can have his environmental cake and eat it too. With careful management, nature can be not only preserved but also improved upon.

Dubos's ideas will not appeal to those hard-line environmentalists who regard man as an interloper and a destroyer of the planet. The author, noting that all animals alter their environments, brilliantly marshals his evidence for an intelligent balance. He may not convince those whose idea of nature is the replica of the Matterhorn at Disneyland or those who see themselves as noble savages. But his words should be welcome to the great majority of people who live somewhere in between.

THE WORLD OF OZ by Osborn Elliott Viking; 253 pages; $14.95

Osborn Elliott became editor of Newsweek in 1961 and set about transforming what was then a pallid copy of TIME into a feisty, prosperous competitor. "Oz" Elliott, now 55 and dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, tells how he did it and how much fun he had along the way. He rose above his humble beginnings (St. Paul's, Harvard, old money and a family friend, Builder-Bureaucrat Robert Moses, who got him a first job on the New York Journal of Commerce) to become business editor at Newsweek in 1955. He and Colleague Ben Bradlee, now executive editor of the Washington Post, conspired to have Post Publisher Philip Graham buy the magazine, name Elliott editor and begin Newsweek's race against TIME. He recounts his proudest moments, notably Newsweek's special issues on Black America, its early revelations about U.S. failures in Viet Nam, its agreement to hire and promote more women.

He does not gloss over his failures, conceding that Newsweek was slow to produce Watergate breakthroughs and that the wizard himself was growing stale and restless in his last years on the job. Apparently he had not completely recovered when he wrote his book. He does narrate many amusing anecdotes. In one, a Nixon aide phones Elliott at home soon after the Watergate break-in on an issue of considerable urgency: changing Julie's magazine subscription. In this work, at least, Elliott chooses not to say much about the nature of his craft, his era or his inner workings. Mostly he reports what happened, as he saw it, ever the good newsman and genial raconteur.

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