A clearly written, extensively researched book and an important contribution to World War II history.
A thorough history of East Prussia during and after World War II.
Clark (New Look at Exchange Rate Volatility and Trade Flows, 2004) moves away from economics with this history. East Prussia was, until the end of World War II, part of Germany. While its earlier conquerors simply absorbed the region’s inhabitants, 20th-century Soviet and Polish rulers instead exercised a policy of ethnic cleansing. During World War II, East Prussia largely avoided the violence that plagued the heart of Germany, but the region eventually saw a Red Army invasion in 1944, accompanied by widespread rape and pillaging. After the war concluded, Allied leaders agreed that this region of Germany should be annexed, with the southern two-thirds of the region given to Poland and the remainder to the Soviet Union. Prussians in the Polish section were forcibly removed from their homes; those in the Soviet-controlled territory were exploited as forced laborers before being expelled. Clark balances recorded political history with eyewitness accounts that put a human face on events. For example, Clark relates Hannelore Schwokowski’s heartbreaking story, from her memoir, of the events that led to the death of her mother, Lotte, at age 47. The book is heavily researched, drawing on previous historical volumes and primary source documents. That said, this isn’t a completely unbiased account; Clark acknowledges that his wife’s East Prussian background inspired him to write the book, and his sympathies definitely lie with this population when he describes an expulsion that “was hardly orderly or humane.”
A clearly written, extensively researched book and an important contribution to World War II history.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481935753
Page Count: 610
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
