An endlessly revealing look at the Nazi regime that touches on large issues and small details alike.
German historian Ullrich completes his comprehensive biography of the man who is perhaps history’s most hated figure.
Adolf Hitler celebrated his 50th birthday on April 20, 1939, with a huge party. But even then, months before World War II began, writes the author, “Nemesis was knocking at his door.” Five birthdays followed until, hours after his 56th, he and the loyal though surprisingly impudent Eva Braun died by suicide. Ullrich has numerous concerns in this significant project, which, like the first installment, remains readable across its 800-plus pages. Far be it from finding excuses for his compatriots, he is unabashed in saying that “the Führer enjoyed the overwhelming support of the German populace, particularly after the Anschluss of Austria,” so much so that had he been assassinated, he would be remembered today as a brilliant leader. Indeed, Hitler himself said, “In the future there will never be a man who holds more authority than I do….But I can be killed at any time by a criminal or an idiot.” Another of the author’s goals is to supply the Holocaust with a precise chronology; he notes that Nazi leaders had made provisional plans to export Europe’s Jewish population to French-ruled Madagascar, which would become a German prison colony. This was a small mercy, however, since the Nazis figured that the Jews would quickly die in the tropical climate. Though “Hitler rarely missed an opportunity to scapegoat ‘the Jews’ as those pulling the strings behind the conflict,” the author argues that after the euthanasia of handicapped citizens as a kind of proof of conflict, the mass destruction of the Jews in areas of German control began piecemeal, with SS and police executions behind the front lines that only eventually became regularized in the concentration camps. Ordinary Germans knew about the killings, Ullrich maintains, but looked the other way. So did the Allied leaders for too long, he adds, faulting them for not stopping the mercurial Hitler while they had the chance.
An endlessly revealing look at the Nazi regime that touches on large issues and small details alike.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-101-87400-4
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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