THIS little book contains valuable nuggets of information, mainly about urban developments in such hard-to-reach places (for Americans) as Cuba and Hungary. Unfortunately the facts are suspended, like bits of brightly colored chopped peppers, in the murky aspic of the author’s ethical sensibility. The hungry reader may try to boil away the gelatine to get at the solid food, but the author will not permit this, for he aims to improve, not merely to inform, and insists that the American reader get a full dose of the coating he has concocted from old Fabian bones. Professor Stretton has developed a switch on the ancient night club wheeze in which the master of ceremonies says: “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, and rich is better.” Professor Stretton’s version ends with “... and poor is better.” He seems to mean it.