Presents one intriguing piece of a much larger puzzle.
An assessment of the economic methods Hitler used to convince ordinary Germans to support his genocidal agenda.
Historians, sociologists and pundits have long speculated on how the Nazi regime managed to persuade its gentile citizens that exterminating Jews and conquering nearby countries was in their best interests. German historian Aly (The Nazi Census, not reviewed, etc.) puts forth an explanation that’s both plausible and incomplete, contending that the Reich gained acceptance through the judicious distribution of wealth to ensure that lower- and middle-class citizens prospered even during wartime. Despite massive expenditures, the Nazis managed to avoid taxing the bulk of the populace through a series of economic maneuvers both brutal and clever. Confiscated Jewish wealth helped defray costs, and in situations where the Reich actually compensated Jews for their losses, it did so by issuing bonds worth a fraction of the amount of the commandeered goods. The Nazi party also borrowed against its future military successes and worked to devalue currency in conquered nations, a move that increased the spending power of soldiers who wasted no time in shipping parcels of luxury items to their eager families back home. The author paints Hitler as a man who brought disparate social classes together in Germany “by plundering other peoples.” Conceding that it’s nearly impossible to obtain precise values from incomplete data, Aly presents an exhaustive array of representative examples from which he extrapolates his theories. There can be little doubt that Hitler’s generosity to the German people played a large role in their acceptance of his agenda, but the mere fact that taxes were lowered and social programs enhanced cannot wholly explain their complicity with the Reich’s agenda. (Describing them as “well-fed parasites,” the author has no interest in justifying their behavior.) Without an exploration of psychological and sociological factors that also played a role, questions remain.
Presents one intriguing piece of a much larger puzzle.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2007
ISBN: 0-8050-7926-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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 Yorkerstaff 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
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
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.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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