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THE NAZI MENACE

Name: THE NAZI MENACE
Author: Benjamin Carter Hett
ISBN: 978-1-250-20523-0

HITLER, CHURCHILL, ROOSEVELT, STALIN, AND THE ROAD TO WAR

by Benjamin Carter Hett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 4, 2020

An excellent read for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the thinking behind World War II.

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Looking into the minds of World War II’s most important leaders. In the 1930s, the world was wracked by a fundamental conflict: Should the nations be democratic, where the people decide what their governments will be, or authoritarian, where dictators make all decisions? The democracies were led by the U.S., England, and France, and the authoritarians by Germany, Russia, Italy, and Japan. Hett, who has written widely on Hitler and the Third Reich, delves into why five of those nation’s most important leaders—Franklin Roosevelt, Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, and, although his name isn’t included in the title, Neville Chamberlain—made the decisions that led to World War II. How did they see the world? What did they fear? What did they hope? What motivated them? What did they see as their strengths? Their weaknesses? In addition to a collection of minibiographies of these pivotal figures, the text is a sometimes-dry, sometimes-gripping, always authoritative story of the 1930s and ’40s and the close parallels that exist with today’s world. Though Donald Trump is never mentioned, the parallels between him and Hitler are obvious throughout. For example, Hitler wrote that a dictator must tell lies, big lies, and keep on telling them even if they are proven false because many will believe them anyway. Also, never apologize. Primarily, though, Hett sticks to the history and motivations of his principals: why Chamberlain appeased Germany at every turn; how Hitler used Chamberlain’s weaknesses to build a war machine; why Roosevelt feared that entering any war with Germany would turn America into a military state; how Churchill almost forced Roosevelt into the war by showing him what America would face with Hitler leading a totalitarian Europe; and why Stalin wanted anything but a war. The 12-page cast of characters, divided by nation, is highly useful. An excellent read for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the thinking behind World War II.

Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-250-20523-0

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 3, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020

Categories:

- BOOK REVIEW
THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY
by Benjamin Carter Hett

- BOOK REVIEW
BURNING THE REICHSTAG
by Benjamin Carter Hett

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Awards & Accolades

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Kirkus Reviews'
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New York Times Bestseller

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

THE OSAGE MURDERS AND THE BIRTH OF THE FBI

by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

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Awards & Accolades

Likes

18

Our Verdict

GET IT

Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2017

New York Times Bestseller

IndieBound Bestseller

National Book Award Finalist

Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.

During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Pub Date: April 18, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017

Categories:

GENERAL HISTORY | TRUE CRIME | UNITED STATES | FIRST/NATIVE NATIONS | HISTORY

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THE <i>WAGER</i>
by David Grann

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by David Grann

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THE LOST CITY OF Z
by David Grann

- BOOK TO SCREEN
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Oct. 20 Release For 'Killers of the Flower Moon'

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NIGHT

by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

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Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.