Ezra Pound was one of America’s most powerful Modernist poets; he edited T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” and shaped it into the poem we know today; his own The Cantos straddled the boundary of words and music. Volume II of A. David Moody’s detailed biography follows Pound through 1920s Paris and 1930s Italy, where he endorsed Fascism for what he saw as its commitment to economic justice. A disappointed American, Pound became obsessed with reforming the U.S. financial system as the world slipped toward war. Moody maintains a non-judgmental tone, allowing Pound’s eccentricities and prejudices as well as his brilliance to speak for itself.
