by Isabel Denny ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 21, 2017
A knowledgeable survey of a specific point in the eastern front and its ramifications for the Baltic region.
A focused history of an intensely held Prussian city on the eastern front during World War II.
While there are numerous surveys of Hitler’s advance into Russia and the hugely sacrificial Russian push back, there is less known about the devastating effect of the war on the German province of East Prussia. In this solid historical account, English journalist and educator Denny focuses on the capital city of Königsberg. Crowned in the 13th century by the imposing castle built by the Teutonic Knights, the city eventually became the seat of the Brandenburg region, and William I was anointed “King of Prussia in the Castle church in 1861.” A land of lakes and small, self-sustaining farms, East Prussia weathered the adversity of seasons and history, most notably being cut off from the rest of Germany by the creation of the Polish Corridor (including Danzig) after the German defeat in World War I, effectively isolating 1.5 million Germans and some 5,000 Jews. The Nazi Party’s promises to restore West Prussia and Danzig to Germany, get rid of the Polish Corridor, and fight communism resonated with large landowners and radical small-scale farmers of the province, and thus Hitler was overwhelmingly elected. The symbolic power of Königsberg was demonstrated when Hitler came in triumph to speak on the eve of the Reichstag election in 1933 and again after the annexation of Austria in 1938. Denny examines how the Jews were gradually routed out, while the German population remained relatively well cared for during the war, with the arrival of Poles as slave labor. By 1942, Königsberg was used as an assembly point for armed services heading to the eastern front. As German might waned and the Russian invasion was imminent, a huge evacuation of civilians took place from April to May 1945. The city’s surrender to the Soviet Army and the Allied bombing campaigns essentially destroyed the city.
A knowledgeable survey of a specific point in the eastern front and its ramifications for the Baltic region.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5107-1240-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
HISTORY | MILITARY | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
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by Tom Clavin ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 21, 2020
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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by Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2018
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
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