A lucid account of a spectacular if disheartening success story.
A history of the “stunning turn of events” that led to Hitler’s dictatorship.
That flamboyant men whom no one takes seriously become national leaders no longer surprises anyone, but Hitler’s rise shocked everyone, and Range’s lively addition to the groaning bookshelves on the Führer describes the critical years from 1919 to 1933. In 1919, a penniless immigrant from Austria but already a World War I veteran and fierce German nationalist, Hitler attended a meeting of the German Workers’ Party, a tiny Munich group whose extreme views appealed to him. He joined, and his dazzling oratory quickly made him the party’s leader and a Munich celebrity. By 1923, his party (now with “national socialist” added to its name) numbered over 50,000, and he launched his famous beer hall “putsch,” which failed but produced a great deal of publicity. Released from prison at the end of 1924, he resumed party leadership. For the remainder of the relatively prosperous 1920s, Nazis remained a negligible political force, but Hitler’s fierce anti-government, racist rhetoric kept them in the news. Matters changed when the Depression crushed Germany’s economy. To worldwide amazement, the Nazis received 6.4 million votes in the 1930 election (eight times their 1928 total) and over 100 seats in the Reichstag. Their vote doubled again in 1932. Germany’s leaders could no longer ignore the nation’s largest political party, but Hitler refused any government position except chancellor. Finally, after nearly a year of national paralysis, conservative figures convinced themselves that they could control Hitler from subordinate positions in the cabinet, and he took office on Jan. 30, 1933. Every reader beginning this lucid, provocative history will want to know how such a fringe character with views abhorrent to educated citizens could become a national leader. Range provides the answer: persistence, luck, and an ignorant establishment—all qualities as common today as a century ago.
A lucid account of a spectacular if disheartening success story. (8-page b/w insert; map; timeline; cast of characters)Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-43512-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A superficial, unreliable profile of the PLO's often articulate, photogenic spokesperson during part of the Intifada, and particularly during the Madrid and Washington negotiations with Israel (199193). Victor, a novelist as well as a journalist specializing in the Middle East, maintains near the beginning of her book that Hanan Ashrawi ``was the one person who had made possible [Yasir] Arafat's presence'' on the White House lawn on Sept. 13, 1993, when his famous ``handshake'' with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin took place. Not only does she not make a case for this extraordinary claim, but Victor demonstrates how, throughout most of 1993, the PLO leader kept Ashrawi ``in the dark'' about the secret Oslo negotiations. Her book also is riddled with the kind of errors that make one question her knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For example, Victor twice claims that the 1917 Balfour Declaration was issued in 1921; the second time, she asserts that it ``provided for two states, Israel and Palestine, to exist side by side.'' Nonsense: The declaration made no reference to any ``state,'' only to Great Britain supporting the establishment of a ``Jewish homeland'' in Palestine, which was soon to be a British mandate. Equally irritating are Victor's stylistic excesses, her use of the kind of hyperbolic prose found in ``puff'' pieces, such as her assertion that Ashrawi's ``razor-sharp responses captured world opinion every time that she faced a camera.'' Earlier this year, Ashrawi resigned from the PLO leadership to establish and head an independent Palestinian human rights monitoring group. It is this, not the media glitz she enjoyed as a PLO spokesperson, that may lend her career its real significance. Until we know whether and how Hanan Ashrawi will contribute to the humanitarian nature of a possible Palestinian state, any biography of her, particularly one as lacking in historical and biographical depth as Victor's, is premature.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-15-103968-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
This massive biography leaves no stone unturned in portraying a familiar but little-studied antebellum figure, considered the young country's best orator. Veteran historian Remini (Henry Clay, 1991; The Life of Andrew Jackson, 1988; etc.) maintains a delicate balance between Webster's (17821852) two personas: ``the Godlike Daniel,'' so called for his brilliant public addresses and eulogies of heroes of the American Revolution, and ``Black Dan,'' a tag referring not only to his dark appearance but to his ruthless politicking and ferocious temper. Much of the study of Webster's public life is organized around the famous speeches that defined and shaped his career, including his dual eulogy of presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and his congressional address appealing for early recognition of Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire, which positioned the congressman and senator for later appointments as secretary of state. Black Dan is more evident in Remini's depiction of the statesman's private life. Besides being alcoholic, Webster had the terrible misfortune of outliving four of his five children, launching three abortive and embarrassing attempts to gain the presidency, and suffering endless financial problems. Remini quite deftly shows why he was known as ``the Great Expounder and Defender of the Constitution,'' depicting Webster as one of the earliest strict constructionists, a man who felt that the Constitution was the defining American document and that the preservation of the Union took precedence over all other policy considerations. Unfortunately, it is here that Webster's political clout was eventually devalued, as he refused to combat the Fugitive Slave Act and chose to accept House Speaker Henry Clay's Missouri Compromise, which perpetuated slavery and did nothing but guarantee the outbreak of war. Remini never properly indicts Webster for this moral lapse, nor does he explain why constitutional amendments to reverse the injustice were not considered. Though Remini's obvious admiration for Webster may sometimes cloud his view, a more complete and engrossing biography could not be produced. (photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 6, 1997
ISBN: 0-393-04552-8
Page Count: 796
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 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.
