Search - In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

I checked this one out from my library. Although I had 14 days in which to read it, I finished it in much less time. It's filled with historical facts of Hitler, his henchmen, and pre-WW2 information of a type that most of us never knew. I was hooked on it from the first page. On the other hand, my husband who also read it, wasn't enamoured with it. He found it to be too full of the romantic exploits of the American ambassador's daughter, Martha Dodd. True, there WAS a lot of that, which made it all the more interesting to me. Maybe this is just naturally a woman's point of view. However I think that any WW2 buff would find it very interesting. Eric Larson is my kind of writer, and he has done nothing but improve with experience. His "Devil In the White City" was great, too. I highly recommend both!

If you have ever wondered how people could have closed their eyes to the atrocities that happened during the years before and during World War II in Germany, this book provides an excellent look at the country through the eyes of the American Ambassador and his family, and others close to the family.It is very well written and fleshed out by this award winning author. It reads more like a fictional story then an historical account, and it is hard to grasp that these things actually happened and the world just proceeded on its merry way while a sick leader (Hitler)was randomly murdering various ethnic groups and classes at will with no backlash. I was personally appalled to learn that even the United States did not "like" the Jews and generally felt some of the same feelings against them as did Hitler, but of course did not murder them. Makes me wonder if they were happy to leave that to psychopath that lived in and ruled Germany. My suggestion? Read this book...well worth the time.

I liked it. I'm passing it on to a friend.

Erik Larson, noted author of The Devil in the White City, returns for more micro-historical-story-telling. In the Garden of the Beasts alternates between William Dodd, the American ambassador during the early years of Hitler's rise to power in Germany, and his daughter Martha, who also went to Berlin. Larson still excels at the story-telling aspect of his craft, although there is less suspense than Devil given the subject matter and its relative familiarity here— we all know what happens to Hitler's Germany. After their one year anniversary in Berlin, subsequent events seemed rushed; Larson was running out of steam. I happened to have read Andrew Nagorksi's Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power earlier this year, which give me a broader perspective on this historical moment and writing about history. The sources one uses probably unconsciously but inherently direct the story being told. Larson, using mostly the Dodds' and other State Department papers, paints Ambassador Dodd as "the lone beacon of American freedom and hope in a land of gathering darkness," albeit a mild-mannered history professor whose style and income bracket didn't jive with the rest of the diplomatic corps, whereas Nagorski focused much more on members of the American press corps, whose reaction to Dodd was mixed because he was ineffectual. Both books informed my very dim understanding of this time in a complementary way, and In the Garden of the Beasts was the more entertaining book.