EYEWITNESS TO HISTORY <i> edited by John Carey (Avon: $10.95) </i>

A very mixed bag of brief excerpts from memoirs, journals, letters and other first-hand views of historical events, ranging from Thucydides’ descriptions of the plague in Athens in 430 BC to recollections of the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. Many of these observers were not exactly impartial: Julius Caesar’s account of his invasion of Britain or a description of the abandoned Malacanang Palace by an anti-Marcos partisan. It’s amusing to read the French ambassador’s impression of Elizabeth I in 1597 (“As for her face, it is and appears to be very aged”) or Lady Mary Wortley Montague’s witty account of her visit to a Turkish bath in 1717. But these excerpts would be both more interesting and informative if John Carey supplied more complete notes.