An important and horrifying contribution to Holocaust studies.
The tale of one Eastern European town reflects a long history of anti-Semitism and political strife.
Bartov (European History/Brown Univ.; Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine, 2007, etc.) draws on historical and archival sources to create a stark portrait of a town in present-day Ukraine, where enmity between Polish and Ukrainian residents, compounded by Russian, Austrian, and German incursions, resulted in violent reactions against the Jewish population. This contribution to Holocaust and genocide studies, in which the author is a respected scholar, is notable for the barbarism that erupted among ordinary men and women against their Jewish neighbors during World War II. Anti-Semitism, however, was rampant much earlier: in a 1924 memoir, a witness reported seeing a Jewish orphanage set on fire by soldiers in search of vodka; in a synagogue courtyard, he “was stunned by a terrifying picture of destruction, vandalism, and cruelty.” Houses were filled with raped Jewish women and “men with smashed heads and gouged eyes.” Jews became the focus of hatred by Poles who believed that they preferred Austrian rule to Polish independence. Jews, Bartov writes, “were featured as an alien, inassimilable, and potentially subversive element,” lumped together with despised Russians and communists. The most hated enemies were Ukrainians, characterized as savage hordes. Ukrainians, for their part, publicized their plight as victims, aligning themselves with Jews. During the war, ethnic hatred erupted into mass murder. Germans created local groups to suppress organized resistance, transforming the Ukrainian militia into “a uniformed district police force.” Bartov profusely documents sadistic atrocities that occurred at the hands of soldiers, police, and security forces throughout the war. What he finds most shocking—and readers will agree—is the “astonishing ease” with which “spouses and children, lovers and colleagues, friends and parents, appear to have enjoyed their brief murderous sojourn in the region” as they killed people they knew personally. “For many of them,” he writes, “this was clearly the best time of their lives.”
An important and horrifying contribution to Holocaust studies.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4516-8453-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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