Joseph Roth has been described as aone of the greatest writers in German of this centurya ("The Times"). With tragic foresight, "Right and Left," first published in 1929, evokes the nightlife, corruption, political unrest, and economic tyranny of Berlin in the twenties, the same territory covered trenchantly in Rothas reportage, recently published as "What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920-33." After serving in World War I, Paul Bernheim returns to Berlin to find himself heir to his recently deceased fatheras banking empire. Increasingly beset by skyrocketing inflation, and dismayed by his brotheras infatuation with the brownshirts, Bernheim turns to an outsider for helpaa profiteering Russian A(c)migrA(c) whose advice proves alternately advantageous and disastrous. Too late to change his fate, he realizes he has been decieved by a master in the craft of manipulation.