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Aristocrat and Proletarian: The Extraordinary Life of Paxton Pattison Hibben

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In the mad crush of history some people are not going to get their deserved place. Paxton Pattison Hibben was one of those until a distant cousin, Stuart Hibben, came along to write this book. The result is a biography of one of the most astonishing characters of the early 20th Century. In the short life span of 47 years, cut short by a fatal illness in 1928, ``Pax'' Hibben did almost everything a man could do _ top scholar at Princeton, diplomat, war correspondent, author, soldier, expert linguist, politician, do-gooder, quasi-revolutionary, and above all _ troublemaker. In this panoramic yet intimate study, set against the tumult of the times, from the anti-Czarist rumbles in St. Petersburg to the wartime and diplomatic intrigues of Europe and Latin America, the anecdotes roll out: Pax Hibben with his friend Teddy Roosevelt, Pax Hibben with his friend King Constantine I of Greece, Pax Hibben fighting a pistol duel with a snotty (and, fortunately, nearsighted) Frenchman, Pax Hibben defending his friend, the American communist John Reed. As Stuart Hibben tells it, it is inescapably an American tale _ a bright young man from Indiana takes on the world, never believing for a moment that he could fail at anything. And proving it, until his own zealous nature nearly becomes the undoing of his idealism. Paxton Hibben's story cried out to be told. In ``Aristocrat and Proletarian,'' Stuart Hibben has done it well.

-- Richard Pyle (author of ``Lost Over Laos.'')