The four colours in the title refer to the skins of, respectively, New Mexico Indian Zuñis, Haitians, Russians, and Israelis; and this is a study of their four contrastive civilizations written by a blond East Coast critic-in-chief with a cantankerous, well-stocked mind, a keen eye for the absurd as well as the essential, and so admirable a sense of English prose that he must surely have started as a poet...

I found myself profoundly moved once, in the Cairo Museum, by the authentic mummified features of Pharaoh Seti, the noblest and most benignant ruler that Egypt ever knew. But all I said was: 'This is the first really good face I have yet met in Egypt.' Mr Wilson must have been hypnotized by the dumb reverence of the Russian masses into his sudden upsurge of buried religious emotion: an adolescent's adoring dream of Christ the Saviour. Indeed, for all his urbanity, skepticism, and New Yorker poise, he seems to be highly suggestible.