A well-conceived study of a little-known corner of history.
Nazi Germany, tourist destination? Yes, by this account—and, by 1937, a destination of choice for a half-million Americans per year.
“You did not have to be pro-Nazi to marvel at the green countryside, the vineyard-flanked rivers or the orchards stretching as far as the eye could see.” So notes Boyd (The Excellent Doctor Blackwell: The Life of the First Woman Physician, 2013, etc.) of the vast, lucrative trade marketing Germany under the Third Reich to non-German visitors, a trade that had begun in earnest immediately after World War I ended. It helped to hold those views or at least believe, as did British aristocrat Violet Bonham Carter, that “the reparations policy insisted on by France…was morally unjust and politically mad.” Carter was traveling to a grimy, still-staggering Germany in 1923, and during that and the following decade, many Britons and Americans came to Germany to enjoy the bohemian liberties depicted by Christopher Isherwood in the stories that would underlie the stage play Cabaret. Some of those Britons took pains to avoid dreadful middle-class people, “however nice they are,” and to stay among “one’s own kind,” as another aristocrat wrote to the folks back home. Some of Boyd’s portraits involve men and women whose firsthand views of Germany would harden their opposition to Nazism—including, surprisingly, the poet and playwright Samuel Beckett, who endured “freezing weather, lack of money, rain and leaking shoes” to report on the place with much less enthusiasm than Graham Greene. Boyd also adds a dimension to a well-known tale by noting Hitler’s famed refusal to shake the hand of African-American athlete Jesse Owens—but adding that ordinary Germans in the Olympic crowd “took the great black athlete to their hearts, chanting ‘Oh-vens! Oh-vens’ whenever he appeared.” Even so, Boyd notes the still greater popular enthusiasm for the regime, concluding that returning visitors would have had no illusions, if honest with themselves, about the Nazis’ true colors.
A well-conceived study of a little-known corner of history.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68177-782-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
HISTORY | MODERN | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
BOOK REVIEW
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.
Jackie Kennedy's secret service agent Hill and co-author McCubbin team up for a follow-up to Mrs. Kennedy and Me (2012) in this well-illustrated narrative of those five days 50 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Since Hill was part of the secret service detail assigned to protect the president and his wife, his firsthand account of those days is unique. The chronological approach, beginning before the presidential party even left the nation's capital on Nov. 21, shows Kennedy promoting his “New Frontier” policy and how he was received by Texans in San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth before his arrival in Dallas. A crowd of more than 8,000 greeted him in Houston, and thousands more waited until 11 p.m. to greet the president at his stop in Fort Worth. Photographs highlight the enthusiasm of those who came to the airports and the routes the motorcades followed on that first day. At the Houston Coliseum, Kennedy addressed the leaders who were building NASA for the planned moon landing he had initiated. Hostile ads and flyers circulated in Dallas, but the president and his wife stopped their motorcade to respond to schoolchildren who held up a banner asking the president to stop and shake their hands. Hill recounts how, after Lee Harvey Oswald fired his fatal shots, he jumped onto the back of the presidential limousine. He was present at Parkland Hospital, where the president was declared dead, and on the plane when Lyndon Johnson was sworn in. Hill also reports the funeral procession and the ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery. “[Kennedy] would have not wanted his legacy, fifty years later, to be a debate about the details of his death,” writes the author. “Rather, he would want people to focus on the values and ideals in which he so passionately believed.”
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3149-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A timely contribution to the discussion of a crucial issue.
A history of the right to vote in America.
Since the nation’s founding, many Americans have been uneasy about democracy. Law and policy expert Waldman (The Second Amendment: A Biography, 2014, etc.), president of New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, offers a compelling—and disheartening—history of voting in America, from provisions of the Constitution to current debates about voting rights and campaign financing. In the Colonies, only white male property holders could vote and did so in public, by voice. With bribery and intimidation rampant, few made the effort. After the Revolution, many states eliminated property requirements so that men over 21 who had served in the militia could vote. But leaving voting rules to the states disturbed some lawmakers, inciting a clash between those who wanted to restrict voting and those “who sought greater democracy.” That clash fueled future debates about allowing freed slaves, immigrants, and, eventually, women to vote. In 1878, one leading intellectual railed against universal suffrage, fearing rule by “an ignorant proletariat and a half-taught plutocracy.” Voting corruption persisted in the 19th century, when adoption of the secret ballot “made it easier to stuff the ballot box” by adding “as many new votes as proved necessary.” Southern states enacted disenfranchising measures, undermining the 15th Amendment. Waldman traces the campaign for women’s suffrage; the Supreme Court’s dismal record on voting issues (including Citizens United); and the contentious fight to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which “became a touchstone of consensus between Democrats and Republicans” and was reauthorized four times before the Supreme Court “eviscerated it in 2013.” Despite increased access to voting, over the years, turnout has fallen precipitously, and “entrenched groups, fearing change, have…tried to reduce the opportunity for political participation and power.” Waldman urges citizens to find a way to celebrate democracy and reinvigorate political engagement for all.
A timely contribution to the discussion of a crucial issue.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1648-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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