A disappointingly unfocused and underdocumented attempt to chronicle the seizure of Jewish possessions and assets by the Nazis and their collaborators. Correspondent and columnist Chesnoff did not intend to write an “encyclopedic” or “definitive” record, but rather a “journalist’s report” for the general reader. His disclaimer notwithstanding, he has recycled a story that has already been told better elsewhere. Chesnoff adds little new to his coverage of Austria, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Norway, France, Poland, and Hungary. He has little to say about the most significant issue to emerge in recent days: new revelations regarding the degree to which Swiss banks were accomplices in the seizure and laundering of Jewish assets by the Nazis and of the banks’ non-cooperation with survivors inquiring after the assets of their families and their unwillingness to admit their guilt and make restitution to those affected. Chesnoff has not undertaken the task of producing a detailed account of the identity of Jewish depositors, or the specific sums they left behind that were seized by the Nazis and their accomplices. This work, he acknowledges, will be completed by scholars. But a readable, reliable synthesis covering the complicit European countries is needed as well, and despite Chesnoff’s claims, this is not it. Although there are frequent citations of scholarly books written about the Holocaust and claims to have consulted classified files, there are no footnotes to document either. Chesnoff has interviewed numerous survivors and other interested parties, but their testimony lends no authority, for example, to his claim (against the arguments of most scholars) that Kristallnacht was enthusiastically greeted by the mass of Germans, rather than embarrassing the decent folk of a so-called civilized country. Readers would be better served by studying the relevant parts of the books by Hilberg, Friedlander, Feliciano, Nicholas, and others that Chesnoff lists in his wannabe bibliography. A disappointing mishmash of emotional narrative and anecdote on a subject that deserves much better. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 2, 1999
ISBN: 0-385-48763-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
In 1989, The National Interest published "The End of History?" by Fukuyama, then a senior official at the State Department. In that comparatively short but extremely controversial article, Fukuyama speculated that liberal democracy may constitute the "end point of mankind's ideological evolution" and hence the "final form of human government." Now Fukuyama has produced a brilliant book that, its title notwithstanding, takes an almost entirely new tack. To begin with, he examines the problem of whether it makes sense to posit a coherent and directional history that would lead the greater part of humanity to liberal democracy. Having answered in the affirmative, he assesses the regulatory effect of modern natural science, a societal activity consensually deemed cumulative as well as directional in its impact. Turning next to a "second, parallel account of the historical process," Fukuyama considers humanity's struggle for recognition, a concept articulated and borrowed (from Plato) by Hegel. In this context, he goes on to reinterpret culture, ethical codes, labor, nationalism, religion, war, and allied phenomena from the past, projecting ways in which the desire for acknowledgement could become manifest in the future. Eventually, the author addresses history's presumptive end and the so-called "last man," an unheroic construct (drawn from Tocqueville and Nietzsche) who has traded prideful belief in individual worth for the civilized comforts of self-preservation. Assuming the prosperity promised by contemporary liberal democracy indeed come to pass, Fukuyama wonders whether or how the side of human personality that thrives on competition, danger, and risk can be fulfilled in the sterile ambiance of a brave new world. At the end, the author leaves tantalizingly open the matter of whether mankind's historical journey is approaching a close or another beginning; he even alludes to the likelihood that time travelers may well strike out in directions yet undreamt. An important work that affords significant returns on the investments of time and attention required to get the most from its elegantly structured theme.
Pub Date: Jan. 22, 1992
ISBN: 0-02-910975-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A valiant effort to explain and make peace with war’s awesome consequences for human beings.
A manual for soldiers or anyone interested in what can happen to mind, body and spirit in the extreme circumstances of war.
Decorated Vietnam veteran Marlantes is also the author of a bestselling novel (Matterhorn, 2010), a Yale graduate and Rhodes scholar. His latest book reflects both his erudition and his battle-hardness, taking readers from the Temple of Mars and Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey into the hell of combat and its grisly aftermath. That Marlantes has undertaken such a project implies his acceptance of war as a permanent fact of human life. We go to war, he says, “reluctantly and sadly” to eliminate an evil, just as one must kill a mad dog, “because it is a loathsome task that a conscious person sometimes has to do.” He believes volunteers rather than conscripts make the best soldiers, and he accepts that the young, who thrill at adventure and thrive on adrenaline, should be war’s heavy lifters. But apologizing for war is certainly not one of the strengths, or even aims, of the book. Rather, Marlantes seeks to prepare warriors for the psychic wounds they may endure in the name of causes they may not fully comprehend. In doing that, he also seeks to explain to nonsoldiers (particularly policymakers who would send soldiers to war) the violence that war enacts on the whole being. Marlantes believes our modern states fail where “primitive” societies succeeded in preparing warriors for battle and healing their psychic wounds when they return. He proposes the development of rituals to practice during wartime, to solemnly pay tribute to the terrible costs of war as they are exacted, rather than expecting our soldiers to deal with them privately when they leave the service. He believes these rituals, in absolving warriors of the guilt they will and probably should feel for being expected to violate all of the sacred rules of civilization, could help slow the epidemic of post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans.
A valiant effort to explain and make peace with war’s awesome consequences for human beings.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8021-1992-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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