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wonceuponatime 's review for:
UPDATE! I re-read this book with my middle-school son, and I am amending my review. In the light of recent events and political figures in our country, this is a totally different read. Perhaps because I have done more research, more reading, more writing about the topic of dangerous politicians and ideals, I am grateful to have been pushed to read it again. After watching the recent Ken Burns documentary about the U.S. involvement/willful ignorance/complicity/support given to Hitler and the Nazi regime in the earliest days, I realized I had already read about much of it in this book.
My one-word description: Meh. I loved Larson's Devil in the White City, and looked forward to this book, especially with all the hype around it. Erik Larson's newest true novel tells the story of Hitler's rise to power in pre-World War II Germany as it unfolded around the U.S. Ambassador Dodd and his family. Dodd is not a well-known player in this scene, but deserves to be given his vantage point. However, I was looking for new and unusual "news", I guess, in a story that is complicated but also well-studied, and I did not find it. The strange (personal) habits of Hitler and his co-horts, the twisted reasons behind many of their mass murders, and the line the U.S. has to draw between isolationism and important world power (which continues to this day) are all laid out, discussed, and in the end, unchangeable. You know the end of this story.
My one-word description: Meh. I loved Larson's Devil in the White City, and looked forward to this book, especially with all the hype around it. Erik Larson's newest true novel tells the story of Hitler's rise to power in pre-World War II Germany as it unfolded around the U.S. Ambassador Dodd and his family. Dodd is not a well-known player in this scene, but deserves to be given his vantage point. However, I was looking for new and unusual "news", I guess, in a story that is complicated but also well-studied, and I did not find it. The strange (personal) habits of Hitler and his co-horts, the twisted reasons behind many of their mass murders, and the line the U.S. has to draw between isolationism and important world power (which continues to this day) are all laid out, discussed, and in the end, unchangeable. You know the end of this story.