An absorbing and well-documented history of postwar Germany.
An illuminating study of the decade following the defeat of the Third Reich.
In his engrossing first book, Jähner, the former editor of the Berlin Times, examines how and why Germany was capable of radically transforming from a sinister fascist mindset toward a modern democratic state. The author presents an expansive yet sharply probing overview of the period, reaching across political, social, and geographical spheres to draw a lucid portrait of a country reeling from the stark consequences of being on the losing side of a horrendous war. “The intention of this book,” writes the author, “has been to explain how the majority of Germans, for all their stubborn rejection of individual guilt, at the same time managed to rid themselves of the mentality that had made the Nazi regime possible.” Jähner chronicles the political events that transpired during the time period and weaves in personal stories from the correspondences of ordinary citizens and eyewitness accounts from noted writers such as Hannah Arendt that articulate the desperate spirit of the era. The author vividly describes the physical chaos impacting cities such as Dresden, Berlin, and Hamburg that were slowly trying to rebuild. As Jähner notes, “the war had left about 500 million cubic metres of rubble behind,” and he offer striking portraits of the grim realities faced by the millions of forced laborers and prisoners of war returning home to strained marriages and relationships. “Many marriages with the Heimkehrer [homecomer] husbands collapsed because each partner felt nothing but disdain for what the other had endured,” he writes. “It wasn’t just women who felt a lack of recognition, the men did too. Many soldiers only really grasped that they had lost the war when they returned to their families.” An immediate and long-lasting bestseller when it was published in Germany in 2019 and the winner of the Leipzig Book Fair Prize, Jähner’s shrewdly balanced look at postwar Germany is sure to spark the interest of readers across the world.
An absorbing and well-documented history of postwar Germany.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-31973-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A welcome addition to the literature on immigration told by an author who understands the issue like few others.
The debut book from “one of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard.”
In addition to delivering memorable portraits of undocumented immigrants residing precariously on Staten Island and in Miami, Cleveland, Flint, and New Haven, Cornejo Villavicencio, now enrolled in the American Studies doctorate program at Yale, shares her own Ecuadorian family story (she came to the U.S. at age 5) and her anger at the exploitation of hardworking immigrants in the U.S. Because the author fully comprehends the perils of undocumented immigrants speaking to journalist, she wisely built trust slowly with her subjects. Her own undocumented status helped the cause, as did her Spanish fluency. Still, she protects those who talked to her by changing their names and other personal information. Consequently, readers must trust implicitly that the author doesn’t invent or embellish. But as she notes, “this book is not a traditional nonfiction book….I took notes by hand during interviews and after the book was finished, I destroyed those notes.” Recounting her travels to the sites where undocumented women, men, and children struggle to live above the poverty line, she reports her findings in compelling, often heart-wrenching vignettes. Cornejo Villavicencio clearly shows how employers often cheat day laborers out of hard-earned wages, and policymakers and law enforcement agents exist primarily to harm rather than assist immigrants who look and speak differently. Often, cruelty arrives not only in economic terms, but also via verbal slurs and even violence. Throughout the narrative, the author explores her own psychological struggles, including her relationships with her parents, who are considered “illegal” in the nation where they have worked hard and tried to become model residents. In some of the most deeply revealing passages, Cornejo Villavicencio chronicles her struggles reconciling her desire to help undocumented children with the knowledge that she does not want "kids of my own." Ultimately, the author’s candor about herself removes worries about the credibility of her stories.
A welcome addition to the literature on immigration told by an author who understands the issue like few others.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-399-59268-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
This is the edition that serious students of the Civil War, and Grant’s role in it, will want. Indispensable.
A new edition, with thorough commentary, of the memoirs of an American Caesar—and indeed, a book long reckoned to be America’s version of The Gallic Wars.
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1855) began his military career without much promise but distinguished himself in combat in the Mexican-American War, where, as he recounts, he came into contact with many of his future opponents in the Civil War. His legendary service in the Western theater of operations, and later as commander of the entire Union Army, led to his election and re-election as president, but all that did not save him from being bilked by a business partner—and thus this memoir, which none other than Mark Twain convinced him to publish to provide for his soon-to-be-widow, since Grant was already ill with cancer. As editor Samet (English/West Point; No Man's Land: Preparing for War and Peace in Post–9/11 America, 2014, etc.) notes, rumors immediately emerged that Twain had ghostwritten it. In fact, Grant labored endlessly on this massive book, which, writes Samet, “is the artifact that does justice to his achievement as the leader of an army that preserved a nation and emancipated four million people.” Grant’s writing is simple and unadorned, though those who read between the lines will see that he is nothing if not politically astute. His account of the political troubles of William Tecumseh Sherman for offering the same mercies as he had to the vanquished Confederate forces is a model of understatement—though, he adds, “the feeling against Sherman died out very rapidly, and it was not many weeks before he was restored to the fullest confidence of the American people.” If anything, Samet might be criticized, gently, for being too vigorous in annotation; an early disquisition on the French and Indian War, for instance, is orders of magnitude longer than the aside of Grant’s that prompted it, and it begs to be reined in. Nonetheless, for Civil War buffs, this is a must-read.
This is the edition that serious students of the Civil War, and Grant’s role in it, will want. Indispensable.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63149-244-0
Page Count: 1024
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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