The definitive history of “the other Germany, beyond the Wall.”
A historian discards the Cold War caricature of East Germany to deliver a compelling historical study.
British historian Hoyer, the author of Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire, was born in East Germany. She begins her latest eye-opening history in 1933, when thousands of German communists fled to Russia after Hitler took power. Almost all were arrested, and 75% were killed because the paranoid Stalin assumed that many were Gestapo spies. Lucky survivors returned to revive a devastated land with no help from reparations-hungry Russia, which vacuumed up farms, machinery, infrastructure, and even the products of rebuilding factories. In 1953, after years of deprivation, the nation exploded in violence, which required Soviet troops to suppress. Shocked East German leaders paid more attention to economics and, aided by Stalin’s death in 1953 and the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 (which cut off a crippling brain drain), accomplished a good deal. Although no fan of communism, Hoyer points out that, by the 1960s, “East German women enjoyed greater professional and economic autonomy than their Western counterparts.” Though the Stasi was pervasive, only a minority suffered. The vast majority came to terms with life in East Germany. By the 1970s, they enjoyed the communist world’s highest living standards, but the 1980s brought difficulties as the declining Soviet Union reduced subsidies, loans, and cheap oil. Desperate leaders made overtures to West Germany, which responded favorably. The decade saw an easing of travel restrictions and censorship, and in the final years, there was an explosion of activism, the wall’s destruction, and a free election followed by unification. Hoyer incisively examines the consequences. Unemployment skyrocketed as Western entrepreneurs took over, and working women lost cheap, universal child care in favor of the West’s skimpy, expensive version. Today, former East Germans often vote for extremist far-right and -left parties, but few long for the old regime.
The definitive history of “the other Germany, beyond the Wall.”Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781541602571
Page Count: 496
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
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
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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